Overview

Daniel Defoe is an exception to this rule. He was a man of action as well as a man of letters. The writing of the books which have given him immortality was little more than an accident in his career, a comparatively trifling and casual item in the total expenditure of his many-sided energy. He was nearly sixty when he wrote Robinson Crusoe. Before that event he had been a rebel, a merchant, a manufacturer, a writer of popular satires in verse, a bankrupt; had acted as secretary to a public commission, been employed in secret services by five successive Administrations, written innumerable pamphlets, and edited more than one newspaper. He had led, in fact, as adventurous a life as any of his own heroes, and had met quickly succeeding difficulties with equally ready and fertile ingenuity.

Full Product Details

9781479115587

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

William Minto (10 October 1845 - 1 March 1893), Scottish man of letters, was born at Auchintoul, Aberdeenshire. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen, and spent a year at Merton College, Oxford. He was assistant professor under Alexander Bain at Aberdeen for some years; from 1874 to 1878 he edited the Examiner, and in 1880 he was made full professor of logic and English at Aberdeen. In 1872 he published a Manual of English Prose Literature, which was distinguished by sound judgment and sympathetic appreciation; and his Characteristics of English Poets from Chaucer to Shirley (1874) showed the same high qualities. His other works include: The Literature of the Georgian Era (1894) edited with a biographical introduction by W Knight Logic: Inductive and Deductive (1893) a monograph on Defoe in the English Men of Letters series (1879) three novels of small importance numerous articles on literary subjects in the 9th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He had two sons, William and Charles. The elder died during celebrations to mark the end of the First World War when a shell misfired.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available