Daniel Defoe

1660-1731. Was born in 1660 with the name Daniel Foe. In the year 1703 he added the French nobility-form „De“ and henceforth he was called Daniel Defoe. He was the son of an emigrated Protestant (Puritan) middle-class family. This was the reason why he had to handle his whole life with discrimination. Because of that Daniel Defoe had to go to the Academy for Dissenters at Newington, the visit of the universities of Oxford and Cambridge was forbidden for him. He worked as a journalist and as an author, dealing with political themes; he worked for the Whigs and the Tories. Because of his political works he had to go into prison. After his release he published the journal Review. But his big success was the novel Robinson Crusoe (1719). He also published other novels: Captain Singleton (1720), The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722), The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Call ´d Colonel Jack (1722) and The Journal of the Plague Year (1722).

Sources

• Maier, Katharina: Die berühmtesten Dichter und Schriftsteller Europas. Wiesbaden, Marix Verlag, 2007.
• Petzold, Dieter: Daniel Defoe >>Robinson Crusoe<<. In der Reihe Text und Geschichte”, Band 2. München: Wilhelm Fink, 1982.