Daniel Defoe

1671. Studies at religious academies in preparation for a career in the Presbyterian ministry.

1682. Established as a merchant in the hosiery trade.

1684. Marries Mary Tuffley and receives dowry of £3,700. Seven children.

1685. Brief involvement as a supporter of Monmouth's rebellion.

1685. Merchant dealing in wine, tobacco, and general goods. Travels extensively in France, Holland, Italy, and Spain.

1688. Publishes a political tract: A Letter to a Dissenter from his Friend at the Hague.

1692. Bankrupt for £17,000: agrees to pay his creditors in full.

1697. Agent for William III in England and Scotland.

1701. The True-Born Englishman

1702. The Shortest Way with the Dissenters - an ironic tract which misfired.

1703. Arrested and put in pillory for The Shortest Way. His imprisonment leads to the failure of his brick and tile factory. Robert Harley (moderate Tory minister) arranges for Defoe's release.

1705. Government agent under Harley, serving as pamphleteer, reporter, and advisor. Travels widely in England and Scotland, promoting the cause of the Anglo-Scottish union.

1713. Twice arrested for debt and publishing ironical political pamphlets.

1719. First novel Robinson Crusoe successful - but not the sequels which he wrote.

1722. Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year, Colonel Jack [a busy year!].

1724. Roxana, A Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain

1725. Goes on producing pamphlets, biographies, fiction, homilies, political tracts at a prodigious rate.

1731. Defoe dies at his lodgings in Ropemaker's Alley, Moorfields. He is buried in the cemetery at Bunhill Fields, in the city of London.