Thesis Statement: Daniel Defoe perfected the art of giving his fiction the appearance of
             truth, thus making his works come alive and appear to be a matter of
             personal recollection.
             Daniel Defoe is the founder of the English novel. " [Defoe]...was one of the germinal minds in political and economical thought, a defender of religious toleration, and an opponent of the evils of human slavery..." (Moore, 7). Defoe reflects his diverse experiences in many countries and in many lifestyles. Besides being a brilliant journalist and novelist, Defoe was a prolific author, producing more than 500 books, pamphlets, and tracts. Defoe was a religious man who stood up for the Christian code of ethics. He spent a great deal of his life trying to get men to act more morally, to abandon prejudices, and to right injustices. Defoe's most effective writing style was to give as much precise detail so that the reader could not decipher whether the event actually took place, or was just all made up by a brilliant mind. He would incorporate details into his writing that would seem true only because the detail was so great the reader figured it to be the real thing. "...there is a quality in Defoe's style that keeps them obstinately alive. It is mainly a matter of spiritual energy, a natural alertness and liveliness that kept him at a high pitch of intensity" (Sutherland, 6). Daniel Defoe perfected the art of giving his fiction the appearance of truth, thus making his works come alive and appear to be a matter of personal recollection.
             Daniel Defoe was born in the year 1660 to Alice and James Foe. There is some controversy over the date because the date was never actually written down. The births of his two older sisters, Mary, on November 13, 1657, and Elizabeth, on June 19, 1659 were
             inscribed in St. Giles parish records, but not his. It is as...