Defoe, Daniel
Defoe, Daniel ( 1660 – 1731 ),born in London, the son of James Foe , a butcher. He changed his name to Defoe from c. 1695 . He attended Morton's academy for Dissenters at Newington Green with a view to the ministry, but by the time he married Mary Tuffley in 1683/4 he was established as a hosiery merchant in Cornhill, having travelled in France, Spain, the Low Countries, and possibly Italy and Germany; he was absorbed by travel throughout his life. He took part in Monmouth's rebellion, and in 1688 joined the advancing forces of William III . His first important signed work was An Essay upon Projects ( 1697 ), followed by The True-Born Englishman ( 1701 ), an immensely popular satirical poem attacking the prejudice against a king of foreign birth and his Dutch friends. In 1702 appeared The Shortest Way with Dissenters, a notorious pamphlet in which Defoe, himself a Dissenter, ironically...
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