Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe, (born 1660, London, Eng.—died April 24, 1731, London), English novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist, author of Robinson Crusoe (1719–22) and Moll Flanders (1722). Defoe was born in London in 1660 to a family of Presbyterian Dissenters, and educated at a dissenting academy in Newington Green. He became a merchant, dealing in different commodities including hosiery. In 1684 he married Mary Tuffley (1665–1732); six of their eight children lived into adulthood. After expanding into the import-export business for goods such as tobacco and alcohol, Defoe made some unwise investments and in 1692 declared bankruptcy. He was twice briefly imprisoned for his debts, negotiating his freedom with the aid of recognisants (guarantors) and becoming an accountant and investment advisor to the government and private business owners. Summary of Robinson Crusoe Robinson Crusoe, as a young and impulsive wanderer, defied his parents and went to sea. He was involved in a series of violent storms at sea and was warned by the captain that he should not be a seafaring man. Ashamed to go home, Crusoe boarded another ship and returned from a successful trip to Africa. Taking off again, Crusoe met with bad luck and was taken prisoner in Sallee. His captors sent Crusoe out to fish, and he used this to his advantage and escaped, along with a slave. He was rescued by a Portuguese ship and started a new adventure. He landed in Brazil, and, after some time, he became the owner of a sugar plantation. Hoping to increase his wealth by buying slaves, he aligned himself with other planters and undertook a trip to Africa in order to bring back a shipload of slaves. After surviving a storm, Crusoe and the others were shipwrecked. He was thrown upon shore only to discover that he was the sole survivor of the wreck. Crusoe made immediate plans for food, and then shelter, to protect himself from wild animals. He brought as many things as possible from the wrecked ship, things that would be useful later to him. In addition, he began to develop talents that he had never used in order to provide himself with necessities. Cut off from the company of men, he began to communicate with God, thus beginning the first part of his religious conversion. To keep his sanity and to entertain himself, he began a journal. In the journal, he recorded every task that he performed each day since he had been marooned.
