The
career of journalism sought by Defoe, set free the best and worst in him. He delighted in
deception; writing bogus letters to the editor, along with bogus travelogues and bogus
histories. He was a journalistic double agent, writing for both Whigs and Tories.
Defoe’s professional life focused on the place of religion in personal and public
life. His writings, from novels to marriage manuals, from occult studies to politics at
large, stem from the viewpoint of a devout dissenter fighting for survival in an Anglican
nation. The issue helped him produce his first bestseller, The True-Born Englishman (1700).
It was a poem of high passion and sarcastic wit defending the reign of the Protestant King
William III. It contains the memorable lines : 
"Wherever God
erects a house of prayer,
The Devil always builds a chapel there,
And ’t will be found upon examination,
The latter has the largest congregation."
Defoe’s paradoxical
attitude for religious righteousness and literary deceit soon led to his undoing. In 1702,
The Shortest Way with the Dissenters was published. The parody suggested that the
best way to handle religious non-conformists, was to hang them. Initially the Tories
welcomed the work, but when they came to know the underlying joke, they went for
Defoe’s throat. He was imprisoned for his work. According to West, it was one of the
greatest defining moments in his life, a near martyrdom that, "far from breaking
Defoe’s spirit of, ….. gave him the courage, patience, and resolution he needed
during the years ahead."
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After he was released from prison, he started a weekly newspaper, The Review, and from 1704–1713, discussed every prevailing issue completely. He wrote many books including The Dyet of Poland (1705), The Consolidator : Or Memoir of Sundry Transactions in the World of the Moon (1705).
After trying various things, Defoe finally became the first novelist in 1719, publishing Robinson Crusoe. It was a hoax and it almost resembled an autobiography. Besides being an adventurous novel, it was about the religious conversion of a man who rebuilt Christendom, with a repentant heart. Robinson Crusoe was based on the story of William Selkrik, who went to sea in 1704, under William Dampier and was put ashore at his own request. |
In 1720, he wrote many
historical works, a guide book ‘A Tour Thro’ The Whole Island of Great
Britain (1724–1727) in 3 volumes; The Great Law of Subordination
Considered (1724), an examination of the treatment of servants and The Complete
English Tradesman (1726). His works also included the theme of supernatural like, The
Political History of the Devil (1726) and An Essay On The History And Reality of
Apparitions (1727).
At the age of 62, he
published Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year and Colonel Jack.
In Moll Flanders, the
heroine was born in prison, where her mother was sentenced to death. As a child, Moll
Flanders was brought up by a gentlewoman. Moll Flanders suffered from romantic
disillusionment at a young age, seduced by a cynical male. As a result, she became a whore
and a thief, but in the end, she gained the status of a gentlewoman.
Defoe thus wrote on political
controversies, elements of the supernatural, historical works and so on. Robinson
Crusoe was among the first to popularize the genre of novel enriching the literary
world with a new form of writing. |
