Daniel Defoe: A Collection of Critical Essays

20th Century Views

by Max Byrd (Editor)

Daniel Defoe creator of everyone's childhood favourite, "Robinson Crusoe," is also an important pioneer of the development of the English novel.

In this volume, such noted critics as Ian Watt, Virgina Woolf, Mark Schorer, and Martin Price examine Defoe's major novels, explaining their aesthetic values and clarifying their significance both in the eighteenth century and for readers today.

Defoe / Virginia Woolf --
Defoe's novels / Martin Price --
The question of emotion in Defoe / Benjamin Boyce --
Robinson Crusoe / Ian Watt --
Robinson Crusoe's original sin / Maximillian E. Novak --
Robinson Crusoe's conversion / George A. Starr --
The conclusion of Robinson Crusoe / J. Paul Hunter --
Moll Flanders / Ian Watt --
Moll Flanders / Mark Schorer --
On Moll Flanders / Dorothy van Ghent --
The conclusion of Roxana / James R. Sutherland --
Defoe's Journal of the plague year and the modern urban experience / W. Austin Flanders

192 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1975

About the author

May Byrd is the author of a number of scholarly books on 18th century English literature, including Visits to Bedlam and London Transformed. Winner of the Shamus Award for best paperback private detective novel, his oeuvre of detective novels include the Book-of-the-Month Club selection Target of Opportunity. Byrd is also the author of four historical novels: Grant: A Novel, Jefferson: A Novel, Jackson: A Novel, and Shooting the Sun. He currently serves as the president of the board of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers.

Max Byrd has taught English at Yale and UC Davis, has been a visiting professor at Stanford, and has lectured at UC Berkeley, Warwick University, the Sorbonne, and Monticello. Among the many publications featuring Byrd’s articles and book reviews are the Yale Review, New York Times Book Review, New Republic, and Woodrow Wilson Quarterly. He has served as editor of the scholarly journal Eighteenth-Century Studies.