Daniel Defoe
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Imagine a plague so horrific, only forty percent of the population lived to tell the tale. Written as a first-person account of the world's most dangerous pandemic, the mysterious narrator bears witness to a society that has seemingly given up hope during terrifying times.
. From mounting death tolls, to horrific bodily ailments, contracting the Black Plague was considered a fate worse than death. Combining his own experiences within each of the...
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This classic eighteenth-century work on the Golden Age of Piracy includes stories of Black Bart, Calico Jack, Anne Bonny, and many others.
How did we come to picture pirates donning peg legs, wearing eye patches, and burying treasure? This book, dating back to 1724, features biographies of the notorious buccaneers of the Golden Age of Piracy, and the history, stories, and legends that surround them. Published under the name...
How did we come to picture pirates donning peg legs, wearing eye patches, and burying treasure? This book, dating back to 1724, features biographies of the notorious buccaneers of the Golden Age of Piracy, and the history, stories, and legends that surround them. Published under the name...
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He was a British merchant, manufacturer, insurer, and spy, but Daniel Defoe eventually found his true calling as a writer-and his masterful fiction has endeared him to readers all over the world. A prolific author who published over 500 novels, travel guides, pamphlets, and journals, he was best known for his 1719 adventure novel Robinson Crusoe. Soon after the enormous success of Robinson Crusoe, Defoe wrote this compelling account of high-seas drama...
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En 1651, Robinson Crusoé quitte York, en Angleterre, pour naviguer, contre la volonté de ses parents qui souhaitaient qu'il devienne avocat. Son navire est abordé par des pirates de Salé : Crusoé devient l'esclave d'un Maure. Mais il parvient à s'échapper sur un bateau portugais qui l'emmène au Brésil, o il devient le propriétaire d'une plantation. En 1659, alors qu'il a vingt-huit ans, il rejoint une expédition recherchant des esclaves...
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Daniel Defoe's faith-filled The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe finds Crusoe bored with his prosperity and consumed by an irresistible longing to return to the island he left many years before. Along with his trusty servant and companion, Friday, he embarks on a harrowing high-seas adventure that takes them to China, over the Russian steppes, and into Siberia. Readers will find themselves captivated by this sequel, which is every bit as engaging...
7) The Storm
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On the evening of 26th November 1703, a cyclone from the north Atlantic hammered into southern Britain at over seventy miles an hour, claiming the lives of over 8,000 people. Eyewitnesses reported seeing cows left stranded in the branches of trees and windmills ablaze from the friction of their whirling sails. For Defoe, bankrupt and just released from prison for seditious writings, the storm struck during one of his bleakest moments. But it also...
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"Memoirs of a Cavalier" is a literary sleight of hand. Written in the style of an eyewitness account, it's actually a work of fiction—a trick Defoe would repeat in his later book "A Journal of a Plague Year". Originally published anonymously, many readers of the time were fooled into thinking it was real. The book's unnamed protagonist is an English gentleman with a lust for adventure. He details his experiences on battlefields across Europe, as...
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What a brilliant rant against female servants, footmen and shoe shiners. The maids come from the countryside and they immediately raise their wages, start wearing fancy silk dresses instead of wool. These even start affairs with the Master's apprentice, his son, or even the masters. This of course wrecks his marriage, family and even his estate at which point she dumps a bastard on him and leaves. All I can say is how horrible those poor rich men...
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First published in 1720, "The Life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton" is an adventure novel by English writer Daniel Defoe that is believed to have been inspired in part by the exploits of the English pirate Henry Every, who was active in the late 17th century.
Written as an autobiography, "Captain Singleton"...
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Daniel Defoe's last novel "Roxana" is perhaps his darkest. Using his "fallen woman" archetype established in his seminal work "Moll Flanders," Defoe tracks the mercurial life of an unnamed female protagonist who adopts the pseudonym Roxana. The story of her rise and fall is a captivating account of the destructive powers of greed and seduction. Roxana begins as a deserted wife with five children. She chooses a life of prostitution for sustenance,...
12) Roxana
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Beginning with an account of her first marriage to a man she describes as a "fool," Roxana tells the tale of her unusual life in a poignant first-person narrative. As her respect for her husband's intelligence and character decline, Roxana and her husband grow apart, and he eventually abandons her to fend for herself. As a result, Roxana forsakes her virtue and turns to a life of prostitution. At first she does this only to ensure her survival, but...
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Irreverent and ironic, this 1726 satire by the author of Robinson Crusoe examines the evolution of evil and the rise of the historical force known as "the devil." Daniel Defoe's passionate and perceptive survey starts with Satan's origins, chronicling the devil's presence in the Bible and his growing sway over humanity. An overview of satanic influences on eighteenth-century life follows, focusing on monarchs and tyrants as well as common folk. Defoe...
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When his ship is wrecked in a storm, Robinson Crusoe finds himself stranded on a desert island with no-one to help him and no chance of rescue. Scared and alone, he tries to make a life for himself: building shelters, hunting food, taming animals, crafting boats and making clothes. But just as his life appears to be settled, he sees someone else's footprint on the beach and a different struggle for survival begins, this time against cannibals and
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Immensely readable history by the author of Robinson Crusoe incorporates the author's celebrated flair for journalistic detail, and represents the major source of information about piracy in the early 18th century. Defoe recounts the daring and bloody deeds of such outlaws as Edward Teach (alias Blackbeard), Captain Kidd, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, many others.
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Set sail for adventure! "As it is usual for great persons, whose lives have been remarkable, and whose actions deserve recording to posterity, to insist much upon their originals, give full accounts of their families, and the histories of their ancestors, so, that I may be methodical, I shall do the same, though I can look but a very little way into my pedigree, as you will see presently." The style of 'Captain Singleton,' like that of 'Robinson Crusoe,'...
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If ever the story of any private man's adventures in the world were worth making public, and were acceptable when published, the Editor of this account thinks this will be so. The wonders of this man's life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant; the life of one man being scarce capable of a greater variety. The story is told with modesty, with seriousness, and with a religious application of events to the uses to which wise men always...
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This novel is a fictionalized account of one man's experiences of the year 1665, in which the Great Plague struck the city of London. Although it purports to have been written only a few years after the event, it actually was written in the years just prior to the book's first publication in March 1722. Defoe was only five years old in 1665, and the book itself was published under the initials 'H. F.' The novel probably was based on the journals of...
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The book tells the story of Bob Singleton, who had been kidnapped as a boy from a good home and grew up with no real home. He came aboard a ship and eventually ended up being cast on an island with other crewmen. They managed to get to Africa and about the first half of the novel deals with the company's travel through Africa until they found a port from which they could get back to Europe. After their return there Singleton became member of another...
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Years after being rescued from the deserted island, Robinson Crusoe's life is much different from the one he knew during his solitary years as a cast away-he has a loving wife, small children, and a successful career as a plantation owner. But, with echoes of his old adventures sounding in his head, Crusoe feels drawn back to his island, and when his nephew offers to take him on board his trading vessel, Crusoe cannot refuse the opportunity to return...
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