Daniel Defoe

“All men would be tyrants if they could.”

Biography

Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in Stoke Newington, near London. His real name was Daniel Foe. He was a famous English writer, politician, and journalist.
His family was from Flanders, in France. He was the youngest of the three children of Alice and James Foe. Daniel added the “De” to his name in about 1690. His parents were Presbyterian dissenters, he was educated by the Reverend Charles Morton, and he went to the Newington Green Academy. He wanted to enter the ministry, but he couldn’t because of his non-Conformist father, so he entered in the world of business.
He was very involved in politics, he wrote pamphlets (texts against someone or something), against politician or in favour of women and girls education and he was even jailed in 1704 when he wrote against intolerance of English church.
He stopped writing pamphlets which disadvantaged him, and he devoted himself only about literature.
He wrote his first book when he was 60, in 1719. This book, “Robinson Crusoe”, and the following “The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe”, were global success, which were translated in many languages.
He wrote then other books, for example “Captain Singleton”; “A Journal of the Plague Year”, a fiction about the Great Plague of London during the year 1665; “The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders”, a famous story about a young woman who lives alone, and a lot of other books less famous.
In 1684, Daniel Defoe married Mary Tuffley, and they had eight children together, and five surviving to adulthood.
He died at the age of 71, in april 1731.

“The best of men cannot suspend their fate:
The good die early, and the bad die