Daniel, the son of James Foe, citizen and butcher, was born in London, in the parish of Cripplegate, in or about the year 1663: at what time, or on what account he prefixed the syllable De to his paternal name, does not clearly appear. He was a Dissenter himself, and appears to have been of a dissenting family. Early imbued with a dread of Papal ascendancy, he took up arms to support the Duke of Monmouth’s insurrection, and was fortunate in escaping not only the sword, but the legal consequences of that rash adventure. In 1685 he went into business as a hosier, in Freeman’s Yard, Cornhill. He was not successful, probably because his attention was engrossed by affairs foreign to his trade: for he not only mingled in the political and religious dissensions of that stormy time, but was too much occupied, according to his biographer Mr. Chalmers, by engagements, which became neither the conscientious dissenter, nor the steady man of business. “With the usual imprudence of superior genius, he was carried by his vivacity into companies who were gratified by his wit, and he spent those hours in the idle hilarity of the tavern, which he ought to have employed in the calculations of the counting-house; and being obliged to abscond from his creditors in 1692, he attributed those misfortunes to the war, which were doubtless owing to his own misconduct. He afterwards carried on the brick and pantile works near Tilbury Fort, though probably with no success. He was in after-times wittily reproached, ‘that he did not, like the Egyptians, require bricks without straw, but, like the Jews, required bricks without paying his labourers.’ He was born for other enterprises, which, if they did not gain him wealth, have conferred a renown, that will descend the current of time with the language wherein his works are written.” His misfortunes however, even if accompanied by some imprudence, did not alienate his friends. “I was invited,” he says in his Appeal to Honour and Justice, “by some merchants with whom I had corresponded abroad, and some also at home, to settle at Cadiz, and that with offers of very good commissions; but Providence, which had other work for me to do, placed a secret aversion in my mind. Some time after, I was, without the least application of mine, and being then seventy miles from London, sent for to be Accomptant to the Commissioners of the Glass Duty; in which service I continued to the determination of their commission.”

Having lost this occupation, Defoe’s active mind expanded itself in a variety of schemes. He wrote, he tells us, many sheets about the coin; he proposed a law for registering seamen; he projected county banks; factories for goods; a commission of inquiry into the estates of bankrupts; a pension-office for the relief of the poor; an academy “to encourage polite learning, and to polish and refine the English tongue;” and an academy for the education of women, with a view to the improvement of society, by training them to a more exemplary discharge of their social duties. Notices of various of these schemes, and of the use or abuse of a speculative spirit in a mercantile country, will be found in his Essay on Projects, published in January, 1697. In 1701 he produced a satire in verse, called The True-born Englishman, which arose out of a personal and virulent attack, by one Tutchen, on William III., whose faults were finally summed up in the epithet “foreigner.” “This,” Defoe says, “filled me with a kind of rage against the book, and gave birth to a trifle, which I never could hope should have met with such general acceptation as it did—I mean, The True-born Englishman. How this poem was the occasion of my being known to his Majesty; how I afterwards was received by him; how employed; and how, above all my capacity of deserving, rewarded, is no part of the present case:” and history does not supply us with the particulars here left unnoticed. But whatever were Defoe’s services or their rewards, he always expressed his gratitude and affection for King William’s memory in ardent terms. In the same year he published two able tracts in support of the principles of the Revolution, entitled, one, The Original Power of the Collective Body of the People of England Examined and Asserted; the other, The Freeholder’s Plea against the Stock-jobbing Elections of Parliament-men. The following pithy sentence may give some notion of the general tenor of the latter. “It is very rational to suppose that those who buy will sell, or what seems more rational they who have bought, must sell.” In these pieces the ultimate resort of all power in the people, and the responsibility of the parliament to the people, inasmuch, to use his own words elsewhere, “as the person sent is less than the sender,” are forcibly explained and asserted. The same principles were developed more strongly in what is commonly called The Legion Letter, a remonstrance against certain exertions of the privilege of parliament, by which the subject’s right of petitioning was thought to be curtailed. This remarkable paper, which, though never clearly avowed, is believed to have been written by Defoe, and presented by him, dressed in women’s clothes, to the Speaker, was entitled, A Memorial from the Gentlemen, Freeholders, and Inhabitants of the Counties of ——, in behalf of themselves, and many thousands of the good people of England, to the Knights, Citizens, and Burgesses in Parliament assembled; and ends in the following words: “For Englishmen are no more to be slaves to Parliaments than to Kings.

“If you require to have this Memorial signed with our names, it shall be done on your first orders, and formally presented.”

Of this attempt to intimidate the House no open notice was taken, nor does it appear to have been known at the time who was the author. But any ill-will which the Tories might have against Defoe, if suspected, was gratified by the consequences of a pamphlet which he published in 1702, entitled, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, or Proposals for the Establishment of the Church. In this ironical performance, which ostensibly recommends the total extirpation of Dissenters from England, he intended to satirize the blind prejudices and headstrong zeal of the high Tory faction: but he had the misfortune to raise up enemies on every side. Some of the Dissenters took it literally, and raised an outcry against him as a persecutor: the Tories understood it better, and had influence enough to get a prosecution commenced against him, and a reward offered for his apprehension, by the government. The House of Commons voted the book a libel, and ordered it to be burnt by the hangman. The printer and the publisher of it were taken into custody, upon which Defoe, who had secreted himself, came forward, “to throw himself upon the favour of Government, rather than that others should be ruined for his mistakes.” He was tried in July, 1703, found guilty of composing and publishing a seditious libel, and, by a very oppressive sentence, was condemned to be imprisoned, to stand in the pillory, to pay a fine of 200 marks, and to find security for his good behaviour during seven years. It is in allusion to this that Pope, who ought to have better appreciated such a man, has made an unworthy attack upon Defoe in the Dunciad,

He had no reason to be, and was not, abashed; and he composed a Hymn to the Pillory, and an Elegy on the Author of a True-born Englishman, esteeming himself defunct as an author, when he was obliged to find sureties for good behaviour. These, like all his works, contain the energetic expression of an independent spirit: to poetical merit they have no claim.

Early in 1704, while he was still in prison, Defoe commenced a periodical paper, entitled The Review, which, in addition to the usual topics of news, contained a report of the proceedings of a “Scandal Club, which discusses questions in divinity, morals, war, trade, language, poetry, love, marriage, drunkenness, and gaming. Thus it is easy to see that the Review pointed out the way to the Tatlers, Spectators, and Guardians, which may be allowed, however, to have treated these interesting topics with more delicacy of language, more terseness of style, and greater depth of learning: yet has Defoe many passages, both of prose and poetry, which for refinement of wit, neatness of expression, and efficacy of moral, would do honour either to Steele or Addison.” (Chalmers.) This periodical was published three times a week, until May, 1713, when it was brought to a close. Defoe continued in Newgate until August, 1704, when Harley procured his release, and recommended him to Queen Anne, who seems to have thought that he had been hardly used, and contributed generously towards the relief of his family, reduced to poverty by the misfortunes of its head. She employed him, he says, in “several honourable, though secret services;” and he speaks, in his Appeal to Honour and Justice, of a “special service, in which I ran as much risque of my life as a grenadier upon the counterscarp.” These seem to have been rewarded by a pension, or by some subordinate office; but the exact nature of the recompense is not known. In October, 1706, he was dispatched to Scotland, to assist in promoting the union between the two kingdoms. In addition to his talents and readiness as an author, he possessed great practical knowledge of commerce and matters connected with the revenue: he frequently attended the committees of the Scottish parliament, and made a variety of calculations, relative to trade and taxes, for their use; and he was very serviceable, as a popular writer, in replying to the various attacks which were made upon that hated measure. His intimate acquaintance with the transactions of this period qualified him well for a work, which now probably is known to few readers, but which contains a great body of minute information concerning the condition and the history of Scotland at that period,—The History of the Union between England and Scotland: of which Mr. Chalmers says, “The minuteness with which he describes what he saw and heard upon that turbulent stage, where he acted a conspicuous part, is extremely interesting to us, who wish to know what actually passed, however this circumstantiality may have disgusted contemporaneous readers. History is chiefly valuable, as it transmits a faithful copy of the manners and sentiments of every age. This narrative of Defoe is a drama, in which he introduces the highest peers and the lowest peasants speaking and acting, according as they were each actuated by their characteristic passions; and while the man of taste is amused by his manner, the man of business may draw instruction from the documents, which are appended to the end, and interspersed in every page. This publication had alone preserved his name, had his Crusoe pleased us less.” Chalmers naturally makes the most of its merits, for his Life of Defoe was originally prefixed to a reprint of it in 1786: but the author would have been little known if his popularity had depended on this work only.

After his return from Scotland, Defoe resided for some time at Newington. He incurred great obloquy, he says, for trying to make the best of the peace of Utrecht after it was concluded, and bore infinite reproaches as having been hired and bribed to defend a bad peace, upon the supposition that he was the author of pamphlets in which he had no share. To escape from this persecution he went to Halifax, in Yorkshire, where he had ample opportunity to observe the confidence of the Jacobite party, and the success with which they laboured to make converts among the lower ranks. To counteract these plottings, he wrote A Seasonable Caution, Reasons against the Succession of the House of Hanover, and some other pamphlets with similar titles; intending, he says, by means of their apparent drift, to put them into the hands of persons whom the Jacobites had deluded. But Defoe was unfortunate as an ironical writer: perhaps the same qualities which gave his fictions such an air of truth tended to give his irony too much the appearance of earnest. On this, as on a former occasion, some persons were foolish or malicious enough to misconstrue his meaning, and to accuse him of writing seditious libels in favour of the Pretender. On this frivolous charge an information was filed against him in the spring of 1713, on which he was taken into custody, and obliged to find bail to a large amount; and the consequences might have been still more serious, but for a second intervention of Harley, who procured a free pardon for him in the following November. Speaking of these very publications in his Appeal, he protests that “if the Elector of Hanover had given me a thousand pounds to have written for the interests of his succession, and to expose, and render the interest of the Pretender odious and ridiculous, I could have done nothing more effectual to these purposes than these books were.”

Well intended and valuable as his labours might be, his only recompense for them was a bare immunity from persecution. After the accession of George I. he was discountenanced and neglected. In 1715 he wrote An Appeal to Honour and Justice, comprising a defence of his character, and a general account of his life, principles, and conduct. He was struck by apoplexy before he had quite completed this work, but recovered the full possession of his faculties, and lived until April 26, 1731. After this attack, whether from the wish to avoid excitement and anxiety, or from the little advantage which his political writings had produced to him, he almost ceased to handle controversial subjects, and devoted himself with unwearying industry to works of a more popular and lucrative kind. Upon the profits of his pen he seems to have depended for his livelihood; and to the necessity of courting popular favour it may probably be attributed, that the subjects of some of his works are vulgar, and the style coarse: but even out of vicious and revolting subjects he had the art of extracting a wholesome moral. The following are the names and dates of the principal productions of his declining years; and it is very remarkable, considering the circumstances in which they were composed, that they should comprise all those fictions to which he owes his imperishable name in British literature:—Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719. Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, 1720. Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, 1721. Religious Courtship; Journal of the Plague Year, 1722. Life of Colonel Jack, 1723. Tour through the whole Island of Great Britain, 1724–7. New Voyage round the World, 1725. Political History of the Devil, 1726. Complete English Tradesman, 1727. Plan of English Commerce, 1728. Memoirs of a Cavalier—date uncertain. But notwithstanding the unceasing industry which enabled him to produce these, and many other works, in the time specified, he appears to have died insolvent, for a creditor took out letters of administration on his effects.

A catalogue of the numerous works known, or confidently believed by the compiler to be Defoe’s, and of those also which are attributed to him on more doubtful evidence, is given by Mr. Chalmers at the end of that edition of his Life which is subjoined to Stockdale’s edition of Robinson Crusoe, in 2 vols. 8vo., 1790; hardly one in four of them has been named in this short account. Defoe was a very rapid, as well as a laborious composer: it is said that he once wrote two shilling pamphlets in a single day. His controversial works however have long lost their interest; and his principal historical work, that on the Union, is too prolix and minute to find general acceptation in our days. In his acquaintance with commerce, and insight into the principles by which it is governed, he is entitled to rank with the most skilful of his contemporaries; but the progress of economical science has of course deprived his commercial writings of most of their value, except as records of the past. Of his numerous works of fiction, we may notice the History of the Plague of London in 1665, Memoirs of a Cavalier, and Robinson Crusoe, as the best known and the most deserving. The first, which professes to be the journal of a saddler resident in Whitechapel during the awful visitation which he describes, is said to have been received as genuine even by Dr. Mead, as no doubt it has been by very many of those who are unacquainted with its real history. There is a homely pathos, a minute and scrupulous adherence to verisimilitude in it which almost irresistibly persuades the reader that none but an eyewitness could have written such an account. The Memoirs of a Cavalier possess the same air of truth. They relate the campaigns of a young Englishman of good family, first in Germany under Gustavus Adolphus, afterwards on the royal side in our civil wars; and depict with great vividness and fidelity the principal events of those interesting and stirring times. But popular as these works have been and deserve to be, they sink into obscurity when compared with the universal acceptation of Robinson Crusoe; the only thing, according to Dr. Johnson, written by mere man, that was ever wished longer by its readers, except Don Quixote and the Pilgrim’s Progress. And Bunyan and Defoe had some points in common. Both came of the people, and both, without the advantages or trammels of a learned education, wrote for and to the people; they slighted no source of pathos or eloquence as being too humble, and cared little for homeliness of phrase, if it expressed their meaning clearly and strongly. It is needless to give any account of a book, which in one shape or other, for in the numerous reprints it has often been curtailed and mutilated, must be familiar to every reader. The story is well known to be identical with that of Alexander Selkirk, who, after a solitary abode of four years on the island of Juan Fernandez, returned to England in 1709. Defoe has been charged with surreptitiously obtaining and making an unfair use of this man’s papers; but there seems to be no ground whatever for the accusation. Selkirk’s story had been made public in several forms seven years at least before Robinson Crusoe was written, and it was free to Defoe or to any man to take it as the ground upon which to build a tale. And far from Selkirk’s papers having been traced into Defoe’s hands, it does not even appear that these pretended papers ever were in existence: indeed Selkirk seems, from the published accounts of him, to have been so much below the fictitious Crusoe in the extent of his resources, and the fertility of his ingenuity (and we say this with no desire to undervalue his active spirit and contented temper), that it is hardly possible that he should have furnished more than the first hint, which Defoe has expanded into so instructive, fascinating, and varied a story.

The following lively criticism of this remarkable work is extracted from Dunlop’s History of Fiction:—

“Defoe and Swift, though differing very widely in education, opinions, and character, have at the same time some strong points of resemblance. Both are remarkable for the unaffected simplicity of their narratives—both intermingle so many minute circumstances, and state so particularly names of persons, and dates, and places, that the reader is involuntarily surprised into a persuasion of their truth. It seems impossible that what is so artlessly told should be a fiction, especially as the narrators begin the account of their voyages with such references to persons living, or whom they assert to be alive, and whose place of residence is so accurately mentioned, that one is led to believe a relation must be genuine, which could, if false, have been so easily convicted of falsehood. The incidents too are so very circumstantial, that we think it impossible they could have been mentioned, except they had been real....” Speaking of the moral of Robinson Crusoe, he continues, “We are delighted with the spectacle of difficulty overcome, and with the power of human ingenuity and contrivance to provide not only accommodation but comfort, in the most unfavourable circumstances. Never did human being excite more sympathy in his fate than this shipwrecked mariner: we enter into all his doubts and difficulties, and every rusty nail which he acquires fills us with satisfaction. We thus learn to appreciate our own comforts, and we acquire, at the same time, a habit of activity; but above all we attain a trust and devout confidence in Divine mercy and goodness. The author also, by placing his hero in an uninhabited island in the Western Ocean, had an opportunity of introducing scenes which, with the merit of truth, have all the wildness and horror of the most incredible fiction. That foot in the sand—Those Indians who land on the solitary shore to devour their captives, fill us with alarm and terror; and after being relieved from the fear of Crusoe perishing by famine, we are agitated by new apprehensions for his safety. The deliverance of Friday, and the whole character of that young Indian, are painted in the most beautiful manner; and, in short, of all the works of fiction that have ever been composed, Robinson Crusoe is perhaps the most interesting and attractive.”