De Foe, Daniel

Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)

Daniel (1661-1731), the author of Robinson Crusoe. His father was a London butcher. Daniel's personal history is a series of ups and downs-chiefly downs. He studied for the Presbyterian ministry, but joined in Monmouth's rebellion and narrowly escaped having his head cut off. He set himself up in trade, selling hose, but failed in business. He held an appointment under the government collecting a tax on windows, but was thrown out by the repeal of the law. He then lost all he had in the tile business. He wrote a pamphlet against the High Church party. He was arrested, set in the pillory, had his ears cut off, and was imprisoned for two years. In all he wrote about 254 books and pamphlets. He died of apoplexy at the age of seventy, needy, in debt, immortal. Robinson Crusoe, the most popular of boy's books, was written when De Foe was sixty years old. It is founded on the actual adventures of a Scotchman named Alexander Selkirk, who spent several years alone on Juan Fernandez Island in the Pacific, west of Chile. The incidents are drawn up out of the writer's own imagination. This boy's story is considered the beginning of stories and novels of adventure. It has been translated into the principal languages of the globe, and has been read with pleasure by more boys than any other book ever penned. "Nobody," said Dr. Johnson, "ever laid it down without wishing it longer." In his treatise on educational theory Rousseau says, "My Emile shall read this book (meaning Robinson Crusoe) before any other; it shall for a long time be his entire library, and shall always hold an honorable place. It shall be the text, on which all our discussions of natural science shall be only commentaries." The success of this book encouraged De Foe to write several more--among others, The Journal of the Great Plague in London. It is an interesting book. It pretends to be written by an eye witness, though the plague had passed ere De Foe was six years old. It is written in so vivid a style, as by a shopkeeper, that it has been supposed by many to be a history of that event. Some idea of De Foe's personal appearance may be had from the description offering a reward of $250 for his arrest: "A middle-sized, spare man, about forty years old, of a brown complexion, and darkbrown colored hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, gray eyes, and a large mole near his mouth." See Selkirk