Author

Daniel Defoe

c. 1660-1731 · English novelist, journalist and pamphleteer, author of Robinson Crusoe

About Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe (c. 1660–1731), English novelist and pamphleteer; Robinson Crusoe founded the realistic adventure novel.

Notable works

  • Robinson Crusoe (1719)
  • Moll Flanders (1722)
  • A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
  • Roxana (1724)
  • The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702)

On this site

Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe

1719 · 18th Century · Novel

Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719) follows a restless young Englishman who ignores his father’s counsel, goes to sea, and after storms and slavery is cast alone on an island where industry, improvisation, and providence remake his life. The novel invented a lasting modern myth of solitude: journal-keeping, goat pens, canoe failures, fear of footprints, and the arrival of Friday.

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