About the Author

Daniel Defoe was many people in one man: a trader, a writer, a traveller, and a spy. He was born in London on September 13, 1660. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe and is considered among the founders of the English novel along with Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. His other notable fictional works include The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), and Moll Flanders (1722). Defoe also wrote various pamphlets, often giving a critical judgement on the current political scenarios. His An Essay upon Projects (1697) was published as a series which advocated social and economic improvements. He also satirised the English notion of racial purity in his poem “The True-Born Englishman” (1701). Defoe died at the age of 70 in London on April 24, 1731.