I'm going to start today's podcast a little differently. I'm going to give you some clues.

I'd like to see if you can guess who I'm talking about. Here we go.

A man born in London around 1660 at the start of the restoration survived the great plague of 1665 and the fire of London in 1666.

Educated at a Puritan school intended as a minister for the non-conformist church.

A Hosea merchant, a supporter of freedom of religion and the press, a rebel and a soldier fighting against King James II.

A confidant for William of Orange soon to be King William III.

Manager, a pantal and brick factory in Tilbury.

Arrested for debts, imprisoned and declared bankrupt. Arrested for political activities, punished in the pillory where he was pelted only with flowers and sent to Newgate prison.

A secret agent or master spy for the government. A husband of 47 years, a father to eight children, he has an island in Chile named after one of his creations, died virtually penniless.

Oh, and one more thing, the author of Robinson Crusoe, which has been printed in more than 700 editions, rivaling only the Bible.

Did you guess correctly? I've been describing the life of Daniel DeFoe, and I wonder if you had any idea before I mentioned Robinson Crusoe, which of course is one of only a number of novels that he wrote.

In centrieking, isn't it, hearing the facts of his life suggests that the man behind Robinson Crusoe was at least as colorful as the story he wrote.

And yet his life isn't that well known in popular history. DeFoe tends to reside in school and university English departments.

And so it's particularly apt that today's guest is both the historian and an English professor, who can weave together the literary and the historic to reveal the story of this fascinating character and his huge contributions to literature.

It gives me great pleasure to welcome Alan Downey, emeritus professor of English at Goldsmiths University of London.

Professor Downey's research interests range from literature to politics, including the history of the book, newspapers, pamphlets and the early novel.

He's currently co-editing the Oxford Handbook of Daniel DeFoe, which we published later in 2022, as well as DeFoe in context, forthcoming in 2023.

Professor Downey, welcome to the podcast. We're going to be talking about Daniel DeFoe and what I think is his most famous work, which is Robinson Crusoe, for those who haven't read it for a while.

Could you remind us of the plot, what happens in Robinson Crusoe?

Robinson Crusoe is the archetypal tale of a shipwrecked mariner on a desert island, shipwrecked on an island off the coast of South America at the mouth of the Oranoko River.

He lives alone for 23 years before he finally rescues a man from cannibals and he names the man Friday.

He and Friday live for another five years together. For a ship comes which takes Crusoe and Friday to Lisbon and they cross via the Pyrenees to the French coast and come back to England.

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