London-born Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) pursued a variety of careers including merchant, soldier, secret agent, and political pamphleteer. He wrote books on economics, history, biography, and crime. But he is best remembered for his fiction, which he began to write late in his life and which includes the novels Moll Flanders, Roxana, and the celebrated Robinson Crusoe.
![Title: The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (1801)[Illustrated], Author: Daniel Defoe](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/2940014294065_p0_v1_s192x300.jpg)
