The Life of Daniel Defoe A Critical Biography

The Life of Daniel Defoe examines the entire range of Defoe’s writing in the context of what is known about his life and opinions.

• Features extended and detailed commentaries on Defoe’s political, religious, moral, and economic journalism, as well as on all of his narrative fictions, including Robinson Crusoe
• Places emphasis on Defoe’s distinctive style and rhetoric
• Situates his work within the precise historical circumstances of the eighteenth-century in which Defoe was an important and active participant
• Now available in paperback

John Richetti is A.M. Rosenthal Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. He has written extensively on the eighteenth-century English novel and eighteenth-century philosophical prose, including The English Novel in History: 1700–1780 (1999), Philosophical Writing: Locke, Berkeley, Hume (1983), Defoe’s Narratives (1975), and Popular Fiction Before Richardson: Narrative Patterns 1700-1739 (1969). He has edited Robinson Crusoe (2003), among other titles.

Acknowledgments x

1 Dissenter, Merchant, Speculator,Writer 1

2 Early Writings 1697–1703: Projects, Dissent, Poems 31

3 Political Journalism: 1697–1710 70

4 Political Agent and Journalist: Queen Anne to the Hanoverians 113

5 Moral, Social, and Economic Writings 1714–31 143

6 Robinson Crusoe 174

7 Travel, Politics, and Adventure 213

8 Crime and Narrative 234

9 Roxana: A Novel of Crime and Punishment 268

10 History, Facts, and Literature 301

11 Political Journalist and Moral Censor: 1715–31 337

Notes 362

Bibliography 390

Index 395

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