Harvard University Press has partnered with De Gruyter to make available for sale worldwide virtually all in-copyright HUP books that had become unavailable since their original publication. The 2,800 titles in the “e-ditions” program can be purchased individually as PDF eBooks or as hardcover reprint (“print-on-demand”) editions via the “Available from De Gruyter” link above. They are also available to institutions in ten separate subject-area packages that reflect the entire spectrum of the Press’s catalog. More about the E-ditions Program »
Michael Shinagel, in a close examination of Daniel Defoe’s life, works, and age, demonstrates that Defoe’s personal experiences as well as the social and economic conditions he confronted turned him into a spokesman for the middle class at the same time they generated in him a longing for gentility. Analyzing the major works of fiction and nonfiction, the author shows how consistently Defoe expressed his ideas on the subject of the middle class and its virtues and points out the impact of these writings on the changing society of the time. His broad-ranging study offers a valuable insight into Defoe himself and provides a new perspective on the decisive opening decades of the eighteenth century.