Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe was born in 1660 in a Dissenter family (the refused the authority of the
Crush of England) and he was educated in a Dissenting Academy in Newington
Green. His father wanted a religious career for him by the set up his own business
instead, and he had several problems with it, like dealing with illicit affairs due to
bankrupt.
He started his career as journalist in The review and became a famous, well-paid
intellectual by writing about politics, but when Queen Anne’s reign started he was
arrested and imprisoned because the Queen didn’t like his critical attitude; he had
to refuse his Whig ideas to be freed and later he became a secret agent for the
government.
At 60 he started writing successful novels, as Robison Crusoe (his first novel) that
was published in 1719. In 1724 he published his last novel, The Fortunate Mistress
(best known as Roxanne).
His writer career made him afford a comfortable life, until his old creators hunted
him and led him into numerous adventures; he died in 1731.

He’s considered the father of the English novel and his narrative of technique
became the basis for the development of the realistic novel. His novels are fictional
autobiographies so they pretend to be true stories of the hero (the main character
of the novel).
He used a retrospective first-person narration and the characters usually appeared
in isolation while struggling for survival, just like Robison Crusoe