THIS book fulfills a need which should have been felt long ago--a biography of DeFoe approached from the historian's point of view. Father of the novel, among the first journalists, and author of Robinson Crusoe, next to the Bible the world's best seller, DeFoe has often enough been studied as a writer. His influence on English literature has been dilated upon time without end.
But as the confidant and adviser of William of Orange, the tool of Barley, Queen Anne's prime minister, and the publicity agent of George I, DeFoe occupies a position in English history and politics, less important, but no less interesting than his place in letters.
Dottin shows clearly and forcefully DeFoe's significance as a pamphleteer and publicity man, first in the employ of one political faction, then of the other. In the middle pages of this book., DeFoe appears as the first yellow journalist, the first crusading journalist--the two being not as the first ghost writer and moulder of public opinion. Even Bernais and Ivy Lee need not have scorned some of the coups pulled by this 18th century writer.
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