Download or read book Selected Writings of Daniel Defoe written by James T. Boulton and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1975-05-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paradoxically, Daniel Defoe is diminished by his popularity as the author of a handful of important novels, since the remainder of his voluminous writings suffer undue neglect. Fully to understand him he should be taken whole but his authorship of over 500 publications renders this feat well nigh impossible. The purpose of this selection, then, is to enable the reader to make or renew the acquaintance of Defoe on some of his favourite topics such as trade and politics, manners and morality, in poetry as well as prose, and in works like A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs Veal and Memoirs of a Cavalier, which are characteristic blends of fact and fiction. Equipped with the insights possible from this sample, the reader - it is hoped - will return to the major novels with a keener appreciation of their distinctive quality and a livelier sense of their author.