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OF THE

AUTHOR OF ROBINSON CRUSOE.

a

DANIEL DEFOE, the author of numerous works of fiction, among which the "History of the Plague" has attained a certain popularity, and "Robinson Crusoe" a lasting and world-wide renown, was born in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, in the city of London, in the year 1661. He was educated at a dissenting school at Newington Green; his father, strict dissenter, intending him for the priesthood. But this project seems to have been abandoned, for some unknown reason, and young Daniel became a tradesman, like his father. Something of the roving, restless nature, so admirably described in "Robinson Crusoe," seems to have been inherent in Defoe himself; for his life is full of strange vicissitudes, and he appears continually involved in trouble on one account or another. We find him taking part in the most ill-considered and unfortunate enterprise of his time, the Rebellion of Monmouth, and narrowly escaping what the cynical spirit of the time dubbed " a merry go-round at rope fair," namely, death by strangulation, for the offence. In after-life he was hotly embroiled in the political quarrels of his age. At one time he was compelled to stand in the pillory, as a punishment for writing a well-timed and thoughtful pamphlet on "The shortest way with the Dissenters." The populace, sympathizing with and admiring him, crowned the pillory with flowers, and converted his penance into a triumph; but this could not relieve him from the burden of the heavy fine he was compelled to pay, and which hampered him for years afterwards. At another time he suffered a long imprisonment, obtaining his release after two years by the intervention of Harley, Earl of Oxford. But he had not the art of advancing his fortunes, though his evident merit procured him employment in several matters of consequence; and, at the end of his long life, he was in poverty and neglect. He died in his native parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, April 24, 1781, at the age of seventy, and was interred in Bunhill Fields burial-ground.

The political works of Defoe are numerous, and had a sensible effect on the times in which he lived. A thorough Englishman, outspoken, vehement, and uncompromising, he shouted out lustily against abuses and wrong-doing wherever he found them; and in many respects his ideas were greatly in advance of his time. Some of his schemes may have been visionary and impracticable; but it is pleasant to hear his sturdy voice raised, and to see his nervous pen wielded so unflinchingly in advocacy of his principles, and to mark how unvaryingly those principles point to moderation, mercy, and the law of kindness. His Review, which he conducted for nine years, may certainly be considered as the pioneer of the Spectator, Tatler, Guardian, and other collections of essays which enriched the literature of the first half of the eighteenth century.

His political writings, however, have mostly passed away with the troublous times which gave them birth, and to which their interest was confined. It was as a writer of fiction that Defoe was to achieve more lasting fame. Two, at least, of his works have a value and a significance quite irrespective of time and place, the one as a record of a national calamity, the other as a wonderful piece of imaginary autobiography. These two books are the "History of the Plague of 1665," and the "Adventures of Robinson Crusoe."

At the time when the scourge was decimating London, Daniel Defoe was only four years old. It could not, therefore, be from memory that he SO vividly described its incidents; though, doubtless, in his youth he heard many an anecdote about the pestilence and its ravages, from men of maturer years, on whose memories it must have made an indelible impression. But his chief talent lay in the management of detail and accurate description; and it is difficult to imagine, as we read the graphic record of the state of the terrorstricken, desolate city, that we have not before us the real daily notes of an actual indweller in the city of the plague. In Robinson Crusoe the same marvellous power is shown, but in a much higher degree. With matchless skill, the doubts and sorrows, the shifts and expedients, the little domestic triumphs and disappointments of the ship-wrecked mariner in his solitary home are put before the reader in the very form most calculated to enlist his interest and sympathies. So thoroughly has the author identified himself with the hero of his romance, that Defoe disappears, and it is Robinson Crusoe himself who becomes a living personality, and moves and speaks before the reader, and becomes as clearly and distinctly personified as any hero of real life.

The first edition of Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719. In the century and a half that has since elapsed, hundreds of editions have appeared in all European languages. Everywhere the book has worked its way; and as for the German version, “Robinson de Jungere" is chronicled as one of the greatest successes of the eminent Hamburgh firm of Campe and Co.

In the present volume, the original text, slightly shortened, has been adhered to. The operation of modernizing the language, necessary, perhaps, in a scientific work, would have taken away one of the chief charms from the narrative of the simple sailor, who is therefore left to tell his tale in his own rough, pathetic, old-fashioned way. The drawings are from an eminent German pencil, and apart from their artistic value, serve the purpose of thoroughly illustrating the text.

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