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After a stint in Newgate prison and more troubles with his bankruptcy, Defoe wrote “Robinson Crusoe” and “Moll Flanders”, both of which were great successes[2†][7†].
Defoe’s intelligence and skills as a writer did not go unnoticed, and he became a secret agent and intelligence operative for the government, particularly during the reign of William III and Queen Anne[2†][6†].
Another five novels followed between 1722 and 1724, for the most part employing rogues and criminals as the protagonists: Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, Captain Singleton, The Journal of the Plague Year, and Roxana.
In the mid-1720s, Defoe returned to writing editorial pieces, focusing on such subjects as morality, politics and the breakdown of social order in England.
It is not about being a hero, but about becoming resourceful through struggle.
Moll Flanders (1722)
This novel tells the story of a woman who navigates a harsh and unforgiving society through a series of marriages and misfortunes. It offers a vivid depiction of the ups and downs of life in the 17th and 18th centuries[2†][1†].
Addison called him a "false, shuffling, prevaricating rascal;" but, under all his tricks and disguises, there was a basis of conscience and of stubborn integrity. He wrote pamphlets and satirical pieces criticizing the government, and his outspokenness often landed him in trouble. In 1692, Defoe was arrested for non-payment of a £700 debt, although his liabilities may have amounted to £17,000.
Defoe's contribution to the matter was an anonymous pamphlet, The Shortest Way with Dissenters (1702), in which, instead of arguing against intolerance, he affected to take the side of his opponents, and tried, by stating their position in the extremest and most brutal fashion, to arouse feeling against them. He was writing about a world he knew and about a world he imagined.
Defoe’s life was marked by political activism and, consequently, several periods of imprisonment.
His father, James Foe, was a hard-working and fairly prosperous tallow chandler (perhaps also, later, a butcher), of Flemish descent[1†]. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. By any standard he was one of the most remarkable men who ever lived. His focus on the details of everyday life, his realistic portrayals of characters, and his exploration of complex moral issues continue to resonate with readers today.
He often presented his narratives as if they were true accounts, based on real-life events or documented reports. ii, p.150.
Picture source: Defoe's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (London: Harrison, 1782), illustrated by Thomas Stothard.
Biographical Materials: Introduction
When he wrote the first part of The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, by far the best known of the 375 works with which he is authoritatively credited, Defoe was fifty-nine.
This was not about romanticizing adventure; it was about the gritty reality of survival.
Journalistic Approach to Storytelling
Defoe’s journalistic background heavily influenced his storytelling. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson[1†][2†].
Defoe was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works[1†][2†] —books, pamphlets, and journals—on diverse topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology, and the supernatural.
Now imagine channeling all of that into storytelling. In his Review, Defoe aimed to set forth and discuss the current news not of England only but of a great part of Europe. Notably, he played a crucial role in the development of business journalism and economic journalism, contributing to the growth and understanding of the British economy during his time[6†].
Defoe’s intelligence and skills as a writer did not go unnoticed, and he became a secret agent and intelligence operative for the government, particularly during the reign of William III and Queen Anne[6†].
In revenge, it ought, according to Rousseau, to be for a time the whole library of a boy, chiefly, it seems, to teach him that the stock of an iron-monger is better than that that of a jeweller. The Dissenters were furious, and some Churchmen delighted; but, when the real nature of the pamphlet became apparent, both sides, angry at being deceived, turned on Defoe.
His father, James Foe, was a hard-working and fairly prosperous tallow chandler, possibly of Flemish descent[2†][1†]. There was no "true-born" Englishman, for the whole English nation, as then constituted, was the result of a mixture of various foreign elements.
| "For Englishmen to boast of generation Cancels their knowledge and lampoons the nation; A true-born Englishman's a contradiction, In speech an irony, in fact a fiction." |
Defoe's brief interval of prosperity was suddenly brought to an end by the King's death in 1702.