Famouse write of Great Britain

Daniel Defoe

Make the most of the best and the least of the worst.
Robert Louis Stevenson

The son of a London butcher, and educated at a Dissenters' academy, he was typical of the new kind of man reaching prominence in England in the 18th century — self-reliant, industrious, possessing a strong notion of responsibility. Defoe's first important publication was An Essay upon Projects (1698), but it was not until the poem The True-born Englishman (1701), that he received any real fame. An ill-timed satire, The Shortest Way with Dissenters (1702), an ironic defense of High Church against nonconformists, resulted in Defoe's being imprisoned. He was rescued by Robert Harley and later served the statesman as a political agent. He turned to writing novels when he was over fifty..

Defoe has been called the father of modern journalism; during his lifetime he was associated with 26 periodicals. From 1704 to 1713 he published and wrote a Review, a journal concerned with the affairs of Europe. He was nearly sixty when he turned to writing novels. In 1719 he published his famous Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. The main hero spent 28 years on the island. Robinson Crusoe describes the daily life of a man marooned on a desert island. Although there are exciting episodes in the novel, its main interest lies in the way in which Crusoe overcomes the extraordinary difficulties of life on the island. Defoe's great novels were not published under his name but as authentic memoirs. His major works include Captain Singleton (1720), Colonel Jack (1722), Roxana (1724), and A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-1727).
Defoe's writing is always straightforward and vivid, with an astonishing concern for circumstantial detail.