Volume 35, Number 20 · December 22, 1988
The Defoe File
By Robert M. Adams
The Canonisation of Daniel Defoe
by P.N. Furbank, by W.R. Owens
Yale University Press, 210 pp., $00.00
After long quiescence, the study of Daniel Defoe has been shaken by major tremors; the Richter scale will be vibrating for years to come. Defoe's place among classic English writers is not in direct question. Robinson Crusoe is safe, not even threatened; so is Moll Flanders, so are most of the other admired fictions. But the list of lesser writings, mostly anonymous—which over the past two centuries has multiplied approximately five-fold—seems to be in for radical shrinkage. The cutting will be slow and painful, but ultimately a reduction of titles definitely or very probably assigned to Defoe may amount to as much as 50 percent.
Review, 2788 words
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