Daniel Defoe

The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures

Book Details

Discerning Reader Editorial Review

Reviewed 08/03/2010 by Ian Clary.

Recommended. A comprehensive but accessible biography ideally suited for leisure reading.

Posterity is inclined to think of Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) primarily as one of the great authors of the so-called Western Canon." Indeed, Defoe's fame for such works of fiction such as Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders and Roxana is justly bestowed upon him. For instance, he is considered the creator of the first, modern novel.

However, Defoe also finds himself in the company of the greats of church history as an important Dissenter of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century. A Presbyterian of Puritan conviction, Defoe was just as well-known for his works on religious and political matters. In his popular biography of Defoe, Richard West has done well to make palatable a post-Reformation British culture to twenty-first century tastes, making the already entertaining life of Defoe even more-so.

Defoe was originally born Daniel Foe, likely in the autumn of 1660 during the reign of Charles II, who after the Restoration of the monarchy was antagonistic to Protestant Nonconformity. On April 24, 1731 Defoe died in hiding. His life spanned the reigns of seven monarchs, two with whom - William III and Anne - he was intimately acquainted. He is buried in Bunhill Fields in London, the common resting place of the Dissenters, that includes famous names as John Owen, John Bunyan and Isaac Watts.

More than just a novelist, Defoe put his pen to various media and causes. He wrote widely on subjects that included financial affairs, journalism, pamphleteering, satire, international trade, religion, biography, cultural criticism and more. He was the editor and columnist for Review, a publication that began in February 1704 and ran until June 1713, which West says was the "longest-running, the liveliest and most influential paper in what would prove to be the golden age of journalism." During much of this period of his life Defoe was engaged as a spy for the administration of William of Orange, spending much time collecting intelligence on High Church Tories and Jacobite rebels in Scotland.

The work that was likely his most famous in his lifetime was The Shortest Way with Dissenters (1702), an anonymous satrical piece that argued for the total annihilation of the Dissenters. After his authorship was made public, resulting in the realization that The Shortest Way was a satire that poked fun at many leading Church of England leaders and politicians, Defoe was thrown in the pillory and the infamous and brutal Newgate Prison, the latter a common place for Dissenters. This did not prevent Defoe from writing in defense of Nonconformity and religious toleration, though he often had to be more adept and subversive in order to dodge subsequent prison sentences. Even while in prison he composed a poem, "Hymn to the Pillory," in which he voiced his defiance to his persecutors.

One of Defoe's great political accomplishments was the role he played in the Act of Union (1707) that saw England and Scotland unite under one British kingdom. As a spy in Scotland he worked hard to discover the popular Scottish attitude to Union in order to report back to his intelligence agency and to propagate amongst the Scots the value of uniting with England. While in Scotland, he came to love the people and culture, an attitude that would appear in later writings.

Although Defoe was a well-published author and government official who had the ear of monarchs, he was often found in hard financial straits. He spent much of his life involved with failed business schemes, buying properties and businesses that would dig him deeper in debt. He lost his wife’s dowry and near the end of his life almost risked the marriage of his favorite daughter Sophia by not being able to pay her dowry. Large parts of Defoe’s life was spent not only in hiding from religious persecutors, but also his creditors.

Defoe demonstrated a wide knowledge of world history and geography—readily apparent in his many writings on far-away lands. He also knew much about Great Britain as seen in his three-volume Tour of the Whole Island of Great Britain, published between 1724 and 1726. This included detailed descriptions of most of England and Scotland, little of Wales and nothing of Ireland. Both a work of history and fiction, the Tour is a monument to Defoe's intellectual industry. It is written under a pseudonym, with Defoe posing as a member of the Church of England, and is coupled with both historical fact and satirical fiction. He often poked fun at the established church and "popery," while in seeming innocence commended the Dissenters he encountered along the way.

Richard West not only knows his subject well, but also finds evident appeal in the life and writings of Defoe. Himself a notable journalist, biographer and historian, West appreciates Defoe from an insider's perspective. While this is not an academic biography, thus one is not bogged down in footnotes and references to secondary sources, there is much in the way of historical work and interpretation. West deftly, though not always deeply, analyses primary sources and displays a good knowledge of them. He is also dependent upon more technical works such as that of Paula R. Backscheider who recently published a study of Defoe. Of the British history written during Defoe's lifetime, West unapologetically uses the work of twentieth-century Whig historian G. M. Trevelyan.

Although this biography is over four-hundred pages, it reads so well that one finds his or herself speeding through large sections in short periods of time. Daniel Defoe is an exciting read and one comes away from it not only learning about the life and writings of one of England's greatest authors, but of the period in general. This will make for great summer reading by a lake!