He is considered one of the founding fathers of the English novel: Who is Daniel Defoe?

He was born Daniel Foe in 1660 in St Giles, London. His father, James Foe, came from a Dutch family and was a wax oil merchant. Unable to study at Oxford or Cambridge due to his family's circumstances, Daniel studied for the priesthood at Father Charles Morton's academy in Newington Green.

The clear, unadorned language of Morton's sermons, later the first vice president of Harvard, influenced Defoe's style. When he completed his education, he gave up the priesthood and went into business and started a haberdashery store.

In 1684 he married Mary Tuffley, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. He sided with the king as a soldier during the Monmouth Revolt in 1685 and barely escaped at the Battle of Sedgemoor. After returning to trade, Defoe, who traveled in Europe and was known to be a spy for the state, started to take part in his life in this way, which is the biggest area of interest that feeds his literature apart from trade.

Daniel Defoe (1660 – 24 April 1731) was an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. Defoe wrote many political tracts, was often in trouble with the authorities, and spent a period in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted him.

He changed his surname to Defoe in 1695. He penned the poem The True-Born Englishman in 1701 in response to criticism leveled at William after the Victorious Revolution in England. Defoe, who was sent to Newgate Prison two years later for his book The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, which he harshly criticized the church and displayed on the yoke, tried to profit from this event by writing the audacious poem "Hymn to the Pillory" and compiling his essays.

After years of political journalism, his first novel, Robinson Crusoe (1719), was published, inspired by the memoirs of survivors like Alexander Selkirk. The following year, he published the second book by Captain Singleton and Robinson Crusoe. In 1722, which can be considered the most important year of his career, he published both Moll Flanders and A Journal of the Plague Year. In 1724, his last famous work, Roxana, was published.

Even during his deteriorating years, he continued to write and produce non-literary works: his travel book A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain and Political History of the Devil are some of them. Defoe died on April 24, 1731, while hiding from his creditors. He was buried in Bunhill Fields cemetery, where John Bunyan is also buried. A monument was erected on his grave with a ceremony in 1870. Defoe is counted among the "founding fathers" of the English novel, and the new way of saying and narrative, which he established with a few of his contemporaries, survives today.