English author Daniel Defoe was at times a trader, political activist, criminal, spy and writer, and is considered to be one of England s first journalists. A prolific writer, Defoe is known to have used at least 198 pen names over the course of a career in which he produced more than five hundred written works. Defoe is best-known for his novels detailing the adventures of the castaway Robinson Crusoe, which helped establish and popularize the novel in eighteenth century England. In addition to Robinson Crusoe, Defoe penned other famous works including Captain Singleton, A Journal of the Plague Year, Captain Jack, Moll Flanders and Roxana. Defoe died in 1731.

About the Contributors:
J.A. Burrow is Winterstoke Professor of English at the University of Bristol. John Pitcher is Fellow of St. John's College, Oxford University. Philip Edwards is King Alfred Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool. Brian Vickers is Professor of English and Renaissance
Literature at the Centre for Renaissance Studies, Zurich. Isobel Grundy is Henry Marshall Tory Professor of English at the University of Alberta. Clare Lamont is Senior Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Andrew Sanders is Lecturer in English at Birbeck
College, University of London. Bernard Bergonzi is Professor of English at the University of Warwick. Martin Dodsworth is Senior Lecturer in English at Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London.