"The Bull Keeps Good Ale & Provides Convivial Company"
– Daniel Defoe
Published in 1791, Robinson Crusoe tells its tale in its full title: ‘The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an uninhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last strangely delivered’d by Pyrates.’
Often thought to be a travelogue and autobiographical in nature, the book was written by Daniel Defoe. It met with such popularity that by the end of the year, four editions had been published. By the end of the 19th century, no book in the history of Western literature had more editions, spin-offs, and translations.
Born Daniel Foe in Fore Street, St Giles, Cripplegate, in 1661, the author was a prolific and versatile writer. He wrote some 500 books, pamphlets, and journals on a wide variety of topics.
He was the son of a prosperous tallow chandler, James Foe, a member of the Worshipful Company of Butchers. In his early life, he experienced some of the most tumultuous occurrences in English history, including the Great Plague of London, which killed some 70,000, and the Great Fire, which occurred in 1666, in which only Defoe’s and two other houses in the neighbourhood were left standing.
Initially educated at the Rev James Fisher’s boarding school in Pixham Lane, Dorking, his mother died when he was about ten. His parents were, and his father remained a Presbyterian dissenter, and at the age of 14, he attended a dissenting academy run by the Rev Charles Morton at Newington Green in London, attending the Unitarian Church there. This was a potentially dangerous act as, at the time, the Government persecuted those who chose to worship outside of the established Church.
Foe entered the world of business as a general merchant dealing at different times in hosiery, wool and wine. He travelled all over the country and the Continent, and in so doing, he would sometimes stop at The Bull Market Deeping where, he reported in his diaries, they kept good ale, and there was convivial company. An ambitious man, he was rarely out of debt but managed to buy a country estate and a ship and civet cats from which he made perfume. He married Mary Tuffley, the daughter of a London merchant, in 1684, receiving a dowry of £3,700, a huge amount given the standards of the day. With his debts and political difficulties, the pairing may well have been doomed, but in fact, it lasted nearly 50 years and produced eight children.
The year after his marriage, Foe joined the ill-fated rebellion of the Duke of Monmouth, an attempt to overthrow James II, but he gained a pardon and escaped the Bloody Assizes and the wrath of Judge Jeffries, known as the hanging judge. After Mary and William III were jointly crowned in 1688, Defoe became one of William’s closest allies and a secret agent. Unfortunately, some of the new policies led to a conflict with France and damaged his merchant business. He was arrested for debts of £700 in 1692, and his civets were killed. Following his release he travelled in Europe, pursuing his wine business in Cadiz, Porto and Lisbon.
On his return to England in 1695 he changed his name to Defoe to sound more gentlemanly and served as a commissioner of the glass duty responsible for collecting tax on bottles. In 1686, he ran a tile and brick factory in Tilbury. Essex. and lived in the parish of Chadwell St Mary.
In 1701 his most successful poem, ‘The True-Born Englishman,’ was published, which defended the King against the perceived xenophobia of his enemies. Claiming that there was no such thing as a true born Englishman, ‘From whence a mongrel half-bred nation there came, With neither name nor nation, speech nor fame.’ But a year later, on the death of the King, there was again political upheaval, and his successor, Queen Anne, mounted an offensive against non-conformists.
Defoe was a natural target, and his pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest. He was found guilty at his trial at the Old Bailey in front of the notoriously sadistic Judge, Salathiel Lovell. who sentenced him to a punitive fine and public humiliation in a pillory for three days, followed by imprisonment in Newgate until the fine was paid. According to legend, the publication of his poem ‘Hymn to the Pillory’ caused the audience to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects, and instead, they drank to his health.
Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, brokered his release and paid his debts. But within a week of his release from prison, Defoe had witnessed the Great Storm of 1703, which raged through the night of the 26/27th of November, causing severe damage to London and Bristol, uprooting millions of trees and killing 8,000 people, mostly at sea. In response to this tempest, Defoe wrote ‘The Storm’ in 1704, which included a collection of witness accounts of the storm and is widely regarded as one of the world’s finest examples of modern journalism. SEPT 1070. HORNER,
In the same year, he set up ‘The Review’ single-handedly, which ran three times a week without interruption until 1713. He continued in his literary vein with the publication of the blockbuster Robinson Crusoe and, the following year, Captain Singleton, an adventure story set in Africa. In the same year he published Memoirs of a Cavalier set during the Thirty Years War.With the ardour for writing expected in a latter-day Jeffrey Archer, he published A Journal of the Plague Year, a novel often read as if it were non-fiction and undersigned by the initials H.F., suggesting that the novel published in 1722 was based on extensive historical research. This was swiftly followed by Colonel Jack, following the life of a boy from poverty to colonial prosperity. Moll Flanders came shortly afterwards, charting the fall and rise of a 17th-century woman, and then his last novel, Roxana, narrates the moral and spiritual decline of a high society courtesan.
With the ardour for writing expected in a latter-day Jeffrey Archer, he published A Journal of the Plague Year, a novel often read as if it were non-fiction and undersigned by the initials H.F., suggesting that the novel published in 1722 was based on extensive historical research. This was swiftly followed by Colonel Jack, following the life of a boy from poverty to colonial prosperity. Moll Flanders came shortly afterwards, charting the fall and rise of a 17th-century woman, and then his last novel, Roxana, narrates the moral and spiritual decline of a high society courtesan.
In 1724, Daniel Defoe turned his attention to his travels and published A tour through the whole island of Great Britain. Here, he describes Peterborough as a small city with some good houses and streets that are fair and well-built. But the glory of Peterborough then and now is the cathedral ‘truly fine and beautiful’.
He then turned north into Lincolnshire, passing the Welland and arriving in Market Deeping, which he describes as ‘an old ill built and dirty town’. However, he did enjoy his stay at the Bull on his tour and stayed there on more than one occasion. There was some excitement at the Bull on 29th September 1724 when Daniel had a meal and drink with his friend Mr Samuel Nicholson from Stamford. When it was time to leave for the journey back to Stamford, his horse was missing: a grey punching mare with a long tail and about 13 hands high. The following day, the landlord of the Bull, Mr Arnold, offered a guinea for its safe return.
Daniel died on 24th April 1731, probably hiding from his creditors. He was interred in Bunhill Fields Burial and Gardens in Islington, London, where a monument was erected to his memory in 1870. His legacy was his gift to English literature, and many consider him to be the first true novelist.
Research: Joy Baxter
Words: Judy Stevens
Pictures: Ian Baxter and David Pearson