Defoe, Daniel (1659? - 1731)

An English adventurer and writer, whose real name is Daniel Foe. He is the author of major work, whose best known title is without a doubt The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), which narrates the life of a shipwrecked man on a desert island. We also owe to him A Journal of the Plague Year (1720), which describes the London of the 1665 plague epidemic. His books provide precious testimony to the customs, values and politics of England and Scotland at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries.