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Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731), one of the most famous writers in English literature, was born in London, the son of James Foe, a butcher. It was Daniel who changed his name to De Foe or Defoe in about 1705. He was interested in politics and opposed King James II. After the Glorious Revolution in 1688 and William III was on the throne, Defoe became one of his personal friends. He became a writer for the government and a satircal writer on various social issues of the time. He turned to full time writing after hearing the inspirational story of a sailor who was rescued after living alone on a desert island in the Pacific, the result being his first novel ROBINSON CRUSOE. Several other adventure stories followed, including MOLL FLANDERS. PAT ROGERS is DeBartolo Professor in the Liberal Arts at the University of South Florida. He was educated at Cambridge where he gained a double first in English and went on to obtain a Ph.D and Litt.D. He has held teaching posts at the universities of Cambridge, London, Wales and Bristol. His books include Grub Street(1972), The Augustan Vision (1974), Eighteenth-Century Encounters(1985) and Literature and Popular Culture in Eighteenth-Century England (1985), as well as works on Swift, Pope, Defoe, Fielding and Johnson. He is editor of The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature (1987) and advisory editor of The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment. He has also edited Joshua Reynolds' Discourses and Jonathan Swift: Selected Poems for Penguin Classics. |
