Synopsis

In this scholarly and imaginative book, John Martin reveals for the first time a life of Daniel Defoe (1661 ?-1731) which, although sometimes hinted at before, has never been discovered. Defoe led a long and mysterious life as a journalist, government agent and secret 'Governor General' of the press and was the writer of a mountain of books, pamphlets and poems. He lived in tumultuous times in which any doubts that Britain was to develop as a parliamentary democracy were settled for ever. Defoe was a religious dissenter but notwithstanding tills he was often at the centre of political and religious debate. Controversially, John Martin argues that Defoe's complex sexuality was the principal reason for the secret and difficult life he led. Although simultaneously married to three 'wives' by whom he had eight children, he was willing to use same-sex relationships to advance himself socially and politically and for money. John Martin argues that Defoe's fictions reveal the events of his life and that in a real sense the pirates, courtesans, and criminals who crowd ills pages - when properly understood - are Defoe in ills many disguises. In real life Defoe was always in debt, frequently arrested and imprisoned, pilloried, twice bankrupted and he ended his life penniless in hiding from a blackmailer.

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