Daniel Defoe
c. 1660 CE–c. 1731 CE · Writer · Cripplegate, London
Daniel Defoe, born Daniel Foe in London around 1660, was an English writer, journalist, and pamphleteer who later added the prefix "De" to his surname. Trained for the Dissenting ministry but drawn to trade, he worked as a merchant, undertook business ventures, and repeatedly faced bankruptcy. He wrote prolifically across politics, economics, religion, and travel, and was pilloried and imprisoned in 1703 for a satirical pamphlet. In his sixties he produced the prose narratives for which he is chiefly remembered, including Robinson Crusoe (1719) and Moll Flanders (1722). He died in London in 1731 amid renewed financial and legal difficulties.
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Cripplegate, London
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The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Daniel Defoe’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Luminaries & Explorers world
- Pierre Corneille· 1606 CE–1684 CE
- John Milton· 1608 CE–1674 CE
- Molière· 1622 CE–1673 CE
- John Locke· 1632 CE–1704 CE
- Baruch Spinoza· 1632 CE–1677 CE
- Johannes Vermeer· 1632 CE–1675 CE
- Jean Racine· 1639 CE–1699 CE
- Matsuo Bashō· 1644 CE–1694 CE
- Henry Purcell· 1659 CE–1695 CE
- Jonathan Swift· 1667 CE–1745 CE
- Antonio Vivaldi· 1678 CE–1741 CE
- Georg Philipp Telemann· 1681 CE–1767 CE
- Johann Sebastian Bach· 1685 CE–1750 CE
- George Berkeley· 1685 CE–1753 CE
- George Frideric Handel· 1685 CE–1759 CE
- Alexander Pope· 1688 CE–1744 CE
- Montesquieu· 1689 CE–1755 CE
- Voltaire· 1694 CE–1778 CE
- Henry Fielding· 1707 CE–1754 CE
- Samuel Johnson· 1709 CE–1784 CE
- David Hume· 1711 CE–1776 CE
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau· 1712 CE–1778 CE
- Denis Diderot· 1713 CE–1784 CE
- Cao Xueqin· 1715 CE–1763 CE
Christian world
Jewish world
Scientists
Islamic world
Hindu world
Rulers world
- Peter the Great· 1672 CE–1725 CE
- Kangxi Emperor· 1654 CE–1722 CE
- Ahmed III· 1673 CE–1736 CE
- Catherine I· 1684 CE–1727 CE
- Yongzheng Emperor· 1678 CE–1735 CE
- Mustafa II· 1664 CE–1703 CE
- Osei Tutu· –1717 CE
- Tokugawa Tsunayoshi· 1646 CE–1709 CE
- Louis XIV· 1638 CE–1715 CE
- Anna (Anna Ioannovna)· 1693 CE–1740 CE
- Tokugawa Yoshimune· 1684 CE–1751 CE
- Nader Shah· 1688 CE–1747 CE
- Feodor III· 1661 CE–1682 CE
- Baji Rao I· 1700 CE–1740 CE
Works
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