Daniel Defoe and Middle-Class Gentility

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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.