Customer Reviews

Daniel Defoe: The Life and Strange, Surprising Adventures

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In Daniel Defoe: The Life And Strange, Surprising Adventures, biographer Richard West tells the story of Daniel Defoe, a maverick, a Puritan, and a dissenter without a constituency. Defoe was also a bankrupt who rubbed elbows with a king, a hack who never failed to pursue the truth. And the writer who produced such literary classics as Moll Flanders, Roxana, A Journal of the Plague Year, and Robinson Crusoe. Defoe's life was every bit as dramatic and unexpected as the protagonists of his famous novels. West has wonderfully and scrupulously recreated the remarkable personality and the colorful times that shaped and were shaped by this noted, fascinating, unique and historic literary figure.

With the tools of a storyteller, Richard West takes his readers on a journey to the world of the enigmatic Daniel Defoe and the political machinations of Britain at the dawn of the 18th century. To any reader,even to one who has a limited understanding of British history, West paves a path among the intrigue of the Whigs and Tories, and has his reader follow the footsteps of Defoe into the Tower of London, the roads of Great Britain, and the gardens of rulers. With the ability to explain Defoe's mysterious background, West guides the reader toward an understanding of a man who has remained elusive for centuries. West offers the reader an explanation for the many masks that Defoe wore as writer, invester, spy and traveler. With the skill of a story-teller, West opens a world of historic fact even to the most reluctant non-fiction reader.

West provides a very readable, unfussy biography, presenting a vivid and detailed portrait of Defoe's life and times. He falls short with his "analysis" of the novels, which amounts to little more than plot summary, but his insight into Defoe's character--as a man of high moral principle who occasionally succumbed to expediency--is priceless.

The foreward is interesting and helps to put this biography in perspective. Richard West candidly indicates that he was much influenced by Paula R. Backscheider's Daniel Defore: His Life which is now out of print. I got the impression that this biography may be based on that book plus West's enjoyment reading Defoe. A biography can often provide an interesting window into a particular time and place. It's interesting reading about the Glorious Revolution and the reign of Queen Anne, but disconcerting to have so many quotes from classic history by Macaulay and Trevelyan. It feels like one is getting a narrow and somewhat dated version of the period. One does not get the full texture that only a historian who has read widely and deeply in particular period of history can provide. But we get a lot of Defoe's own words and West himself is a good story teller so if one is looking for an entertaining biography why quibble whether the setting is Macaulay's storybook England rather than the real thing (whatever that may be).