Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe (c. 1660–1731) was an English writer, journalist, and trader, widely regarded as one of the founders of the English novel. Born in London to a merchant family, Defoe led a varied life as a businessman, political pamphleteer, and spy before turning to fiction in his late fifties. His rich life experiences gave his writing a vivid realism that distinguished his work from earlier literature.

His masterpiece, Robinson Crusoe (1719), tells the story of a shipwrecked sailor stranded on a deserted island for twenty-eight years. The novel was an immediate success and remains one of the most widely read works in English literature, celebrating themes of survival, self-reliance, and human resilience.

Defoe followed this success with other significant works, including Captain Singleton (1720), an adventure tale of piracy; Moll Flanders (1722), a picaresque novel tracing a resourceful woman through poverty, crime, and redemption; and A Journal of the Plague Year (1722), a fictionalized account of the 1665 London plague, remarkable for its journalistic detail. His final major novel, Roxana (1724), explored themes of wealth and morality.

Defoe's pioneering use of realistic detail and first-person narration profoundly influenced the development of the modern novel, earning him the title "father of the English novel."