Excerpt from Masters of Literature, Defoe Daniel DE F oe, or Defoe, was born in London, in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, in the year 1661. His father, James Foe, a Dissenter of good family, was in business as a butcher in that parish. He was probably a very prosperous butcher. Nothing much is known of the little Daniel's childhood. The Plague visited London when he was three years old but he was then too young to take notice of what was afterwards one of his most deep impressions. Even if he noticed the Fire, a few months later, it was probably less important to him than the breaking of a toy. The words he may have are pleasant to the unimaginative. Little Daniel may have been in the country during both tragedies. The only facts known to us Of his childhood are: (a) that he learned from a boxing young English boy, probably at the cost of a bloody nose, not to strike his enemy when down (b) that he copied out the Pentateuch in shorthand, so that he might have some holy writ Of his own if, as was feared then, pious Charles II, taking to Popery, should prohibit the printed English Bible; and (c) that he drank the Bath waters about the year 1674. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.