| One of three children, Daniel Defoe was born to James Foe, a butcher, and his wife Alice, in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, London about 1660. It seems that Defoe's name went through various spellings: Foe, Faugh, DuFoo, Du'Foe, DeFoe, DeFooe, Dukow (a sexton's error) and Daniel Defoe, Esq. Often Defoe signed himself D.F., D.D.F. or D.Foe. |
| James Foe was of middle-class stock, although his mother was apparently higher-born. Despite this, Defoe lived his early years in poverty and hardship because of the political and religious views of his father, a pious Dissenter from the Church of England and follower of Oliver Cromwell. |
| When Defoe was five or six years old, two appalling events occurred which deeply affected him: the Plague and the Great Fire of London. In his later writings he vividly describes both events, and presents a particularly unforgettable picture of them in his Journal of the Plague Year (1722). |
| Because his father was a Dissenter, Daniel was denied the privilege of attending either Oxford or Cambridge. Nevertheless, dissenting academies had been established in various parts of the country. It was to one of these, Stoke Newington Academy, kept by Charles Morton, that Defoe was sent when he was ten years old to prepare for the Presbyterian ministry. He attended the academy from 1674 to 1679 and learned there science and the humanities. Latin, however, was not taught, an omission which Daniel regretted all his life for he felt every learned man should have a command of that language. Morton lectured in English and required his boys to write in their native language. It was under Mr. Morton's tutelage that Daniel learned to write in the clear colloquial style he is known for. |
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