Product Description
Daniel Defoe led an exciting and indeed precarious life. A provocative pamphleteer and journalist, a spy and double agent, a revolutionary and a dreamer, he was variously hunted by mobs with murderous intent and treated as a celebrity by the most powerful leaders of the country. Imprisoned many times, pilloried and reviled by his enemies, through it all he managed to produce some of the most significant literature of the eighteenth century. Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions is the first biography to view Defoe's complex life through the angle of vision that is most important to us as modern readers--his career as a writer.Maximillian Novak, a leading authority on Defoe, ranges from the writer's earliest collection of brief stories, which he presented to his future wife under the sobriquet Bellmour, to his Compleat English Gentleman, left unpublished at his death. Novak illuminates such works as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, novels that changed the course of fiction in their time and have remained towering classics to this day. And he reveals a writer who was a superb observer of his times--an age of dramatic historical, political, and social change. Indeed, through his many pamphlets, newspapers, books of travel, and works of fiction, Defoe commented on everything from birth control to the price of coal, and from flying machines to the dangers of the plague.Beautifully and authoritatively written, this is the first serious, full-scale biography of Defoe to appear in a decade. It gives us, for the first time, a full understanding of the thought and personal experience that lie behind some of the great works of English literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Biography or Bibliography?
Before reading this book, I knew Daniel Defore only through his exciting fiction: Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, etc.

It turns out that Defoe also has an exciting life: struggling merchant in and out of bankruptcy, political pamphleteer, pilloried for slander, government spy, and so on.

Sadly, though you can pick the interesting elements of Defoe's life out of this work, it takes some effort.Novak's book is really a lengthy analysis of Defoe through his writings and spends much more time discussing the polemical meaning of various poems than, say, Defoe's relationship with his wife, or his travel, or his education.

In fact, all aspects of Defoe's life are really only described in this biography insofar as they can be accessed through Defoe's writings.This makes the book -- whose scholarship I do not fault -- tedious and not very easy to read as biography. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an OCR edition without illustrations or index. It may have numerous typos or missing text. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from GeneralBooksClub.com. You can also preview excerpts from the book there. Purchasers are also entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Volume: 1; Original Published by: Printed by J. Ballantyne for J. Ballantyne in 1810 in 348 pages; Subjects: Literary Collections / General; Literary Collections / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; Literary Criticism / General; Literary Criticism / European / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh; ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:THELife Of Daniel Defoe.PAMPHLETEER AND POET.CHAPTER I.CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH (1659—1678).To narrate the career of Daniel Defoe is to tell a tale of wonder and daring, of high endeavour and marvellous success. To dwell upon it is to take courage, and to praise God for the splendid possibilities of life. Defoe's incessant activity of itself excites astonishment. It can be said of him, even with greater truth than of Dryden, " His chariot wheels got hot by driving fast." Defoe is always the hero; his career is as thick with events as a cornfield with corn; his fortunes change as quickly and as completely as the shapes in a kaleidoscope—he is up, he is down, he is courted, he is spurned ; it is shine, it is shower, it is couleur de rose, it is Stygian night. Thirteen times he was rich and poor. Achilles was not more audacious, Ulysses more subtle, /Eneas more pious. The tasks he set himself, the way he performed them, how Bhe struggled, and the meed that he won, it is the object of these pages to set forth ; and with a full sense of the importance of our mission we proceed merrily.i.—THE FOES OF ETTON IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE.The ancient home of the Foes—the village of Etton -—is a diminutive place of fewer than one hundred inhabitants, situated about five miles from Peterborough, in Northamptonshire ; and that it was this spot, and not Elton in Northants (a place that does not exist), or Elton in Hunts, as stated by previous biographers, we are able, as the result of research at the Probate Office, Peterborough, and in the Etton registers, to 'lay down for certain. This, it may be urged, is a small matter (which, for the sake of peace, we will grant); but at the same time it may be submitted that there is something decidedly cheering, when a long journey has ... ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Daniel Defoe's life was packed with incident and drama. Born in the year of the Restoration of the Monarchy after the English Civil War, he remained a nonconformist throughout his life, actively rebelled against James II, travelled the country as a spy for King William and Queen Mary, worked in Scotland on active behalf of the historic Union of Scotland and England, helped launch the South Sea Company, was bankrupted frequently as a businessman, was imprisoned for libel and debt, and died a pauper. ... Read more

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Daniel Defoe is known as the father of the English novel. Virginia Woolf described Moll Flanders and Roxana as 'among the few novels...one can call indisputably great'; and Robinson Crusoe is one of the most enduring characters in English literature. Defoe wrote ten novels including two lesser known sequels to "Robinson Crusoe". This is the first authoritative scholarly edition of all his novels. Carefully selected copy texts are supported by extensive new editorial material explaining the novels' publishing history and details of later parodies, sequels and adaptations. This is the first modern scholarly critical edition of all of Defoe's novels. It brings together all three parts of "Robinson Crusoe" and examines their relationship. Editorial material includes a substantial introduction to each novel, full explanatory endnotes, textual notes, and a consolidated index in volume 10. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

Product Description
Originally published in 1894.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

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Furbank and Owens attempt to disentangle the story of Daniel Defoe's political career, as journalist, polemicist, political theorist and secret agent. They argue that this remarkable career calls for a good deal of rethinking, not least because biography and bibliography are here inextricably intertwined. The book challenges the current account of Defoe's political career rather drastically in some cases. It argues, for example, that Defoe's cherished story of his intimacy with King William a staple of all previous Defoe biographies was most probably an (immensely bold) fiction, a view which, if correct, entails considerable revision of his personality and career. Likewise, it offers a bold new interpretation of the famous series of letters Defoe wrote in 1718 to his Government paymaster, the Whig Undersecretary of State Charles de la Faye, in which he describes how he insinuated himself into the management of a number of opposition Tory journals to restrain andenervate' them. Modern biographers have taken these extraordinary letters at face value, constructing their accounts of Defoe's later political career around them.By contrast, Furbank and Owens argue that they represented, instead, a dazzling piece of mendacity. If Defoe was deceiving anybody it was his Whig paymasters. ... Read more

Product Description
This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more