Defoe, Daniel

Defoe, Daniel (1660-1731), author, b. London.

Daniel Defoe was the son of a butcher named John Foe.

He had a varied career, being at times a merchant, a spy for King William III and a writer.

One pamphlet he wrote offended the Government and he was placed in the pillory for three days and afterwards sent to prison.

From 1703-14 he ran his own newspaper and sometimes, if news was scarce, he made up reports to print in it.

As a newspaper reporter, he met Alexander Selkirk. Selkirk had come back to England after spending over three years marooned on the island of Juan Fernandez in the Pacific. This gave Defoe the idea for a book. It was published in 1719 as The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. In all, Defoe wrote more than one hundred books and several of them, including Robinson Crusoe, are still read today.

See Richard West Daniel Defoe