Yahoo News On this day in 1731: Daniel Defoe, powerful propagandist and father of the English novel, dies
Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1660 to a family of Flemish origin. As a nonconformist, he could not attend Oxford or Cambridge, so went instead to the Rev. Charles Morton’s academy at Newington Green, where he received an exceptionally broad education.
Having decided not to become a Presbyterian minister, Defoe followed his fascination with trade and travel, and in 1683 started out as a merchant.
He already had a keen interest in politics, and, as a nonconformist, naturally allied with the Whigs. He wrote his first pamphlet in 1683. On the accession of the Catholic King James II two years later, he joined the Duke of Monmouth’s rebellion, although managed to escape after the Battle of Sedgemoor. When William of Orange took the throne in 1689, Defoe rode out to welcome him, and became his leading pamphleteer, defending him, a foreigner, in his pamphlet The True-Born Englishman.
In 1701, following the Tory Parliament’s illegal imprisonment of five men from Kent for urging Parliament to prepare thoroughly for the impending European war, Defoe presented Parliament with a pamphlet, Legion’s Memorial. In it, he reminded Parliament that Englishmen are no more slaves to Parliament than to kings. The prisoners were released, and Defoe won national acclaim.
In 1702, he wrote a satirical pamphlet, The Shortest-Way With the Dissenters, ridiculing certain high church Tory practices. People took it seriously, and he was prosecuted for seditious libel, and sentenced to three sessions in the pillory. He made an event out of it, writing another pamphlet, Hymn to the Pillory, which sold in the streets and turned the event into a carnival.
He was sent back to Newgate Prison, and his brick and tile business in Tilbury went under. The Tory Speaker of the Commons, Robert Harley – to whom Defoe had presented his petition on the duties of Parliament two years earlier – got him out of Newgate, but in return for Defoe working for him as pamphleteer and spy.
Defoe began to produce a government periodical called The Review. It came out three times a week, and he wrote almost all of the content himself from 1703 to 1713. It covered politics, business, religion, morals, and a wide range of topics that would foreshadow other periodicals. At the same time, the work for Harley took him around the country, and enabled him eventually to publish Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain.
In 1714, the Tories fell from power and the Whigs swept in with George I. They quickly employed Defoe, again as pamphleteer and spy.
Soon after, he focused on the work for which he would become best known. His novel Robinson Crusoe came out in 1719, and Moll Flanders followed in 1722. Two years later, he released Roxana.
His commercial activities brought highs and lows. He had a considerable appetite for risk, and his first bankruptcy came in 1692, when he was wiped out from insuring ships. He later claimed that “thirteen times was I rich and poor,” and at the time of his death he was probably in hiding from creditors.
His marriage to Mary Tuffley seems to have been a happy one of 47 years, and they had eight children, six of whom survived to adulthood.
Among his many achievements, it is his novels that are remembered most. Their universal appeal, deft characterisations, deep insight into motivations, and simple but effective style earned him the title, Father of the English Novel.
Defoe died on 24 April 1731. Some criticised him as a man who had served as propagandist and intelligence agent for Tories and Whigs. He did not view these roles as contradictory. In his mind he was always – in all things – working as an advocate for moderation.
