DANIEL DEFOE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 76, 30 March 1935, Page 2 (Supplement)

DANIEL DEFOE.

Adventure stories are loved by old and young alike, and the best adventure story of all, and the pattern for so many others, is tlio well-known " Robinson Crusoe," by Daniel Defoe, the founder of English journalism.

The son of a London butcher, Defoe was born in 1001, and was educated to bo a Nonconformist minister, but beginning with the writing of pamphlets lie went on to start a newspaper of his own. All the events of the day he wrote . about, whether it was party politics, the burning problem of tlio time, or religion, or finance, or trade, and always he wrote in an interesting and ironical way that the people wanted to read.

It was this ironical way of writing, however, that brought him punishment. On the appearance of his pamphlet, "A Short Way with Dissenters," the people became so angry with his contempt of their methods of punishing dissenters that they seized Defoe and locked him in the pillory that stood in the public placc. This, however, did not daunt Defoe, who promptly wrote "A Hynln to the Pillory," and the people so admired liis spirit that he won a great triumph.

In his "Journal of the Plague Year," ho pretends to write as an eye-witness of the events of the terrible plague, but tliia cannot be true, as Defoo was only a child when the plague happened, and he wroto the "Journal" when he was a middle-aged man. It is a vivid story, however, and makes very good reading. Other striking and original books are his "Memoirs of a Cavalier" and "Captain Singleton," but the best of all is, of course, "Robinson Crusoe."

Tlio groundwork of the book was the experienro of a shipwrecked sailor, Alexander Selkirk, who had been marooned on tho little island of Juan Fernandez for four years. Although the background of the book was real fact, yet Daniel Defoe wrote mainly out of his head, an adveuture story that is more real than any other man's account of events ho lias actually experienced. This tale is one that we can all read again and again, and on© in which is proved the infinite superiority of plain, clear, simple writing.

And it is Defoe's fiction, not his pamphlet writing, nor his newspapei' work, nor his biographies or travels, although they are interesting and show us what England was like in those days, that has won for him a distinct place in English literature, and. a place on the book shelves of boys and girls. His writing was tine and original, and' he had one of the greatest of all gifts— a clear and imaginative mind.