Top 10 Books About Daniel Defoe

1. Daniel DeFoe: Master of Fictions: His Life and Ideas

by Maximillian E. Novak. Oxford University Press. From the publisher: "Novak illuminates such works as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, novels that changed the course of fiction in their time and have remained towering classics to this day. And he reveals a writer who was a superb observer of his times—an age of dramatic historical, political, and social change."

2. Daniel Defoe: The Whole Frame of Nature, Time and Providence

by Katherine Clark. Palgrave Macmillan. From the publisher: "A comprehensive interpretation of one of Great Britain's most wide-ranging and prolific authors, this book examines Daniel Defoe's capacity to perceive fundamental historical change and long-term social process in light of his observations on liberty, property, trade, warfare, religion, and manners."

3. Daniel DeFoe: The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures

by Richard West. Carroll & Graf Publishers. From the publisher: "The many baffling, colorful facets of Daniel Defoe's person and career come into striking focus in this new biography by Richard West. Here is Defoe the tradesman, soldier, and spy, the journalist, novelist, satirist, newsman, and pamphleteer. Consistent only in his failure as a businessman, Defoe would never manage to provide adequately for his wife and their six children, neither in commerce nor by his undeniably prolific pen..."

4. Daniel DeFoe: His Life

by Paula R. Backscheider. Johns Hopkins University Press. From the publisher: "Paula Backscheider's widely acclaimed biography offers a fascinating account of this remarkable life. She reveals new information about Defoe's secret career as a double agent, his daring business ventures, his dangerous pen--and his cat and mouse games with those who sought to control it. This is the definitive biography of one of eighteenth-century England's most influential figures..."

5. A Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe

by W. R. Owens, and Philip Nicholas Furbank. Pickering & Chatto Publishers. From the publisher: "'A Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe' has been designed by the authors as an answer to some of the special problems in establishing a canon of Defoe’s works. Each entry in Furbank and Owens’s 'Critical Bibliography' includes a description or synopsis of the content of the work, together with a discussion of the evidence of Defoe’s authorship."

6. Critical Essays on Daniel DeFoe

by Roger D. Lund. Macmillan. From the publisher: "The full range of literary traditions and schools is represented. Each new volume is carefully conceived and developed to fill a gap in the literary criticism available today. Volume editors are established authorities on the lives, works, and critical receptions of their subjects. They are uniquely qualified to ensure the spectrum of critical controversies, trends, and techniques inspired by their subjects in their own countries and abroad..."

7. A Defoe Companion

by J. R. Hammond. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. From the publisher: "An introductory section traces the forces which molded Defoe as man and writer and summarises his contribution to English letters. This is followed by detailed introductions to the novels and documentaries placing each of the principal works in its literary and biographical context."

8. DeFoe and the New Sciences

by Ilse Vickers. Cambridge University Press. From the publisher: "In his long career as a writer Daniel Defoe never tired of advocating the value of personal observation and experience; and he never wavered in his conviction that it is man's God-given duty to explore and make productive use of nature. In this first major study of Bacon's legacy to Defoe Ilse Vickers shows that the ideas and concepts of Baconian science were a significant influence on Defoe's way of thinking and writing."

9. Text of Great Britain: Theme and Design in Defoe's Tour

by Pat Rogers. University of Delaware Press. From the publisher: "This work also reflects the concerns and methods of Defoe's oeuvre as a whole. Other aspects of the Tour's ideology are reviewed, notably its political bearings and its treatment of the South Sea Bubble of 1720, a national disaster that has strong personal overtones for Defoe. Finally, an attempt is made to illuminate the design of the work and the ways in which its formal structure supports Defoe's intellectual attitudes."

10. Writings on Travel, Discovery and History

by W R Owens(Editor), and P N Furbank (Editor). Pickering & Chatto Publishers. From the publisher: "This set includes many of Defoe’s key historical writings, which are crucial to an understanding of his view of contemporary life, and offer to modern scholars a unique resource for the study of eighteenth-century history, politics and travel."