Kajol devgan


Kajol was born on 5 Aug to "Tanuja", an ex filmi-personality and "Somu Mukherjee", a producer. So, naturally, it comes to her as hereditary not to forget the tremendous input she applies to enact the roles she's given and there's quite an impression in the BOLLYWOOD too that she's born to act and perform on screen. She's got a sis "Tanisha" who acts for TV and now is working for BPL.

Kajol attributes her acting capabilities and the skills to her genetic influences as well as her personal effort. One could definitely see the sheer hard work and dedication towards the art behind all of her roles. Though she's not as beautiful and glamourous as the other dolls, KAJOL is outstanding when it comes to acting and she delivers out the best without the usual make-up that is part of the glamour world and as she's not so much interested in publicity or celebrity stuff becoz she treats acting purely as a profession that she doesn't believe in number game even if she's considered the second best in the BOllywood


Kajol got all the roles on the merit of her performance and she never had to go asking for the roles or lap up the offers which come her way. She feels motivated when given challenging roles but never accepts the ones which she's already assayed before. It's not that she expects the roles or the script be specially written for her or waits to take up the extraordinary and unusual woman-oriented roles but she enacts the roles when different from the ones she did and she takes it as a challenge to move out the persona and live the roles.

Off the screen, Kajol is so frinedly and makes the atmosphere so light and joyous with her hearty laughs and charming attitude that wherever she is, it's a delightful sight to watch. And that's the reason behind her having cordial relations with all the people in the industry and bears a very report with the actors and directors.

She's a multi-faceted paradox and has a versatility to act in a variety of roles and this's the central point of her personality of simplicity and charm.

Now Kajol got married to her actor-lover Ajay Devgan and still makes head lines in BOLLYWOOD. There's a flurry of her films we're going to see around.

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Kareena kapoor


Flag bearer of the most reputed and ancient families in Bollywood, Kareena Kapoor made her mark in the film industry, not through her enviable lineage, but because of oodles of talent that she posses and her hard work.

Prithviraj Kapoor, a pioneer of Indian theater and Hindi film industry, is her great grand father. Her grandfather Raj Kapoor is widely considered as Bollywood’s original showman. Her parents Babita and Randhir Kapoor were both actors so was her grand father’s brothers Shashi Kapoor and Shammi Kapoor and her uncles Rishi Kapoor and Rajiv Kapoor. Her sister Karisma Kapoor was one of the most successful actresses of the 90’s.

Beboo, as she is fondly called, has a reputation of being a spontaneous actress. Just before the shots, she would be seen fooling around but once the camera is switched on, she transforms to the mood of the character so fast that she has surprising and won accolades from all of her co-stars and directors she has worked with.



Kareena is known for speaking her mind without thinking about its consequences and was misconceived as being arrogant, during her initial stages. For cheap publicity, some actresses would make some crude remarks about her, knowing that she would retort, but with age, she has wised-up.

Kareena’s schooling was at Jamnabai Narsee School, Mumbai and then she went to Welham Girl’s Boarding School, Dehradun and later Harvard summer school, for a short-term course in microcomputers and information technology. She then took an admission in Government Law College at Churchgate, after completing one year there, she realized that acting is what she want as a career and attended the Kishore Namit Kapoor acting school.

Kareena made an unconventional and rather bold debut along with Abishek Bachachan in J.P Dutta’s Refugee (2000). Her performance got her rave reviews and filmmakers started queuing up at her door for her dates. But she then had to put up with a bad phase, when some of her much awaited films like ‘Ashoka’ and ‘Yaadein’ didn’t do well but still she had more offers coming her way and producers were ready to give double her market price, realizing her potential. Such reaction from producer’s part was unheard of in Bollywood, where usually actress of a flop film is sidelined.

Even though she was not the heroine in ‘Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham’, her performance as ‘poo’ was widely appreciated and the film also did well in box office. Then came ‘Chameli’, in which she played a prostitute. It fetched her lot of critical acclaim and she didn’t had to look back after that. ‘Aitraaz’ and ‘Hulchul’ followed which were also successful. Critics as well as the audiences were taken aback by her acting prowess in ‘Omkara’, and her special dance appearance in ‘Don’ was also appreciated. She has a lot of prestigious projects coming up like Milenge Milenge with Shahid Kapoor, Bajirao Mastani with Salman Khan, Kismat Talkies with Hrithik Roshan, Lajjo with Aamir Khan directed by Mani Ratnam and Yash Raj’s next film.

Kareena is currently dating Shahid Kapoor. A huge controversy erupted when a news channel released a video clipping of her kissing her boyfriend Shahid.

Kareena Kapoor News
Kareena dumps Shahid
Kareena and Shahid Kapoor have been having a shaky relationship lately and it has gone far enough and according to a latest news report the couple has decided that enough is enough. Read more

Kareena Kapoor dumps Shahid for Saif Ali Khan!
If rumours are to be believed Kareena Kapoor and Shahid Kapur have ended their almost three year old relationship. Read more

Kareena Kapoor backed out of ‘My Punjabi Nikah’
Kareena, who is good friends with Salman has good naturedly backed out of ‘My Punjabi Nikah’ directed by Sohail Khan, when she learned that Salman wants to cast Katrina, his girlfriend. Read more

Kareena Kapoor jumps on a moving train!
While shooting for Imtiaz Ali’s yet untitled film, Kareena Kapoor, who had never boarded a train before. Read more

Kareena Kapoor practicing Yoga for her lungs
Kareena Kapoor has one of the best bodies in Bollywood. Besides exercising to keep her body firm and fit, she is experimenting with Yoga as well . Read more

Kareena got herself a new costume designer
Apart from a couple of emergencies, Kareena Kapoor has always worked with costume designer Manish Malhotra. . Read more

New Kareena kapoor pictures

Kareena back in Yashraj films after 5 years!
Kareena Kapoor’s last film with Yashraj was ‘Mujhse Dosti Karoge’, almost 5 years back. Read more

“If people say I’m arrogant, so be it!” Kareena.
It is common knowledge that Kareena gives a lot of attitude to even top filmmakers and actors, hence reportedly producers, directors are shying away from casting her in their films.. Read more

Abhishek threw Kareena out of Karan’s new film!
Kareena lost out on Tarun Mansukhani’s new untitled project produced by none other than Karan Johar, because Abhishek Bachchan refused to work to work with her. Read more

“Kareena Kapoor better than Britney” – Tusshar Kapoor

Kareena Kapoor has done an item number in the new film ‘Kya Love Story Hai’. The track is being edited and will go on air next week. Read more

Kareena put out the rumour that she is not doing Kismet Talkies

There was a speculation going round that Kareena Kapoor is not doing Zoya Akhtar’s ‘Kismet Talkies’ with Hrithik Roshan. But we can be rest assured now—she has denied the rumor. Read more

New kareena kapoor pictures added

Kareena might do Sanjay Dutt film

After receiving rave reviews for her performance in Omkara and getting awards for her role in the film more performance oriented roles seems to coming her way. Read more

Kareena loathes Bipasha, John, Aishwarya Rai and Abhishek Bachachan

After Mallika and Sanjay Leela Bhansali speaking what they exactly felt about their co-stars, now it is the turn of actress Kareena Kapoor, in Karan Johar’s popular chat show ‘Koffee with Karan’. . Read more

Kareena Kapoor on the roll

Kareena Kapoor has been an ardent fan of Mani Ratnam and she claims to have seen all of Mani Ratnam’s films and have watched ‘Roja’ and ‘Bombay’ many times. Couple of years ago she got a chance to work with him in ‘Yuva’. But it was a small role and she never hid her dreamed of doing meatier role in his films. Read more

Kareena in Yashraj’s animated film!

Kareena Kapoor is all set to lend voice to an animated character ‘bitch’ in Yash Raj Productions ambitious animated film ‘Dogs’. Saif Ali Khan would accompany her in this venture, dubbing for the character ‘dog’. It is an interesting combination, even though they are just lending their voice, as both are fabulous comic times

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Priety zinta


Nickname
Preetam Singh


Height
5' 4" (1.63 m)


Mini Biography
Preity Zinta shot to fame as the refreshing, cool, wet model in the Liril ad. She also modeled for Perk and her dimpled smile won the hearts of million. Preity never thought she would be an actress. Kapoor saw her in the Liril ad and liked her so much that her instantly decided that the next film he would announce would have her in the lead. However 'Tara Rum Pum' never got made and is still pending since the director got very busy with his other projects.

But another offer soon came by, Kundan Shah's 'Kya Kehna.' Though the film was the first, Preity had actually begun shooting for her first release which was Mani Ratnam's Dil Se. The film was a hit which won Preity accolades. Later Abbas-Mustan's Soldier that too was a hit at the box-office confirmed she was here to stay. Though 'Kya Kehna' was her first film, but it released in 2000 and was the surprise hit of 2000.

Her role in 'Dil Chahta Hai' and 'Dil Hai Tumhara' was appreciated and liked by all and that has made her an actress to reckon with in Bollywood. Her screen presence, charm and down to earth nature has made her the favorite actress of almost all the directors and producers. With banners and films like Rakesh Roshan's 'Koi Mil Gaya' with Hrithik Roshan, Nikhil Advani's 'Kal Ho Na Ho' starring superstar Shahrukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, and Jaya Bachan, Farhan Akthar's 'Lakshya' with Hrithik Roshan and Amitabh Bachchan, Atul Agnihotri's 'Dil Ne Jise Apna Kaha' starring Salman Khan and Bhoomika Chawla, Yash Chopra's 'Veer Zaara' with superstar Shahrukhh Khan and Rani Mukherjee, Siddhart Anand's 'Salaam Namaste' with Saif Ali Khan, and Karan Johar's 'Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna' with superstar Shahrukh Khan, Amitabh Bachan, Abhishek Bachan, Rani Mukherjee, and John Abraham, Preity has already made her place in the hearts of the public and also in Bollywood.

Trade Mark
Her dimples



Trivia
Model and TV anchor

Graduated in Psychology

Turned down the lead in _Marigold (2004)_.

Has won over 4 awards for Kya Kehna and 7 Awards for Kal Ho Na ho.

Critics began to take notice of her after her performance in Kya Khena.

Won Best Actress at Stardust Awards for 'Veer Zaara.'

She won the IIFA Style Diva Award (2005).

Is a major fan of the hit TV series The Simpsons

Her father, Durganand Zinta was an officer in the Indian Army. Durganand Zinta died when Preity was thirteen, in a car accident in which her mother, Nilprabha Zinta was also involved. Her mother was bedridden because of this incident.

Has two brothers, Deepanker Zinta and Manish Zinta, a year older and a year younger respectively. One of her brothers is a commissioned officer in the Indian Army.

Has written three columns for BBC South Asia.

She joined a group of top stars (Shahrukh Khan, Rani Mukherjee, Saif Ali Khan, Arjun Rampal and Priyanka Chopra) in the Temptation 2004 concert, which was a huge international success.

She narrowly escaped death twice in late 2004, once after an explosion at a Temptation concert in Colombo, and later in the Indian Ocean Tsunami.

Appeared in Manish Malhotra fashion show Freedom (2006).

In May 2006, along with Karan Johar she received an invitation to represent Bollywood at the Cannes Film Festival. They took this opportunity to promote the film Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006).

When not shooting she used to return to her home town Shimla. She recently moved into her own home in Mumbai, which she bought in mid-2005.

Her favorite perfume is Envy by Gucci.

Her good friends in the industry include Shahrukh Khan and his wife Gauri Khan, Abhishek Bachchan, Bobby Deol, Aishwarya Rai and Saif Ali Khan.

Very close friends with actor Hrithik Roshan and his wife 'Suzanne Khan'.

Listed #41 by UK magazine Eastern Eye one of "Asia's Sexiest Women" (Sept/ 2006).



Personal Quotes
"I lost my father when I was 13-years-old. He was a great man, my father, and very intelligent. I love him very much. I believe it's very important that parents have a personal connection with their children. It helps kids feel more secure, have a feeling of family, makes them feel loved."

"Whenever I came across something that influenced me, I wanted to be that. So it varied from an astronaut, airhostess, army girl, to truck driver. Once, I wanted to be a nun - my mother wanted me to change schools after that..."

"I am single and desperately looking for a good man in my life. I did have major crushes when I was younger but no serious relationship."

"I want to bring a change and do something new and different in my profession, but in the beginning I'll have to toe line, I want to be known as a performer not a star."

"I am proud to be part of today's Bollywood. I love dancing and lip synching to our songs."

"To act, you must know pain. You must know what it means to be in love, what it means to be rejected."

"You know what's the worst part about being an actress? It's the pressure to look gorgeous all the time and to behave perfectly. But I'm not perfect, nobody is."

"Acting can truly take a toll on your nerves. I mean we have to be larger than life. Worse, I've seen actors acting off the sets too."

On the changing face of Indian cinema "At one time I wondered if I was doing the right films, today I know I have made the right choices. Indian cinema is changing, not step by step but by leaps. New blood is coming in, mindsets are changing and our exposure to the world is ever- increasing. I am glad these positive changes are happening when I am in the industry and not ten years from now."

On love at first sight "It is superficial to fall in love with someone looking at their face. To me I need to discover the person. I would never look at someone and exclaim - He is the one!"


sachin tendulkar biography


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Walter de la Mare

Walter John de la Mare, OM CH (April 25, 1873 – June 22, 1956), was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, probably best remembered for his works for children and "The Listeners". He was born in Kent (at 83 Maryon Road, Charlton[1] - now part of the London Borough of Greenwich), descended from a family of French Huguenots, and was educated at St Paul's Choir School. His first book, Songs of Childhood, was published under the name Walter Ramal. He worked in the statistics department of the London office of Standard Oil for eighteen years while struggling to bring up a family, but nevertheless found enough time to write, and in 1908, though the efforts of Sir Henry Newbolt he received a Civil List pension which enabled him to concentrate on writing.

One of de la Mare's special interests was the imagination, and this contributed both to the popularity of his children's writing and to his other work occasionally being taken less seriously than it deserved.

De la Mare also wrote some subtle psychological horror stories; "Seaton's Aunt" and "Out of the Deep" are noteworthy examples. His 1921 novel Memoirs of a Midget won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction.

The imagination
De la Mare described two distinct "types" of imagination — although "aspects" might be a better term: the childlike and the boylike. It was at the border between the two that Shakespeare, Dante, and the rest of the great poets lay.

De la Mare claimed that all children fall into the category of having a childlike imagination at first, which is usually replaced at some point in their lives. In his lecture, "Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination," he argued that children ". . . are not so closely confined and bound in by their groping senses. Facts to them are the liveliest of chameleons . . . They are contemplatives, solitaries, fakirs, who sink again and again out of the noise and fever of existence and into a waking vision." Doris Ross McCrosson summarizes this passage, "Children are, in short, visionaries." This visionary view of life can be seen as either vital creativity and ingenuity, or fatal disconnection from reality (or, in a limited sense, both).

The increasing intrusions of the external world upon the mind, however, frighten the childlike imagination, which "retires like a shocked snail into its shell." From then onward the boyish imagination flourishes, the "intellectual, analytical type."

By adulthood (de la Mare proposed), the childlike imagination has either retreated for ever or grown bold enough to face the real world. Thus emerge the two extremes of the spectrum of adult minds: the mind molded by the boylike is "logical" and "deductive." That shaped by the childlike becomes "intuitive, inductive." De la Mare's summary of this distinction is, "The one knows that beauty is truth, the other reveals that truth is beauty." Another way he puts it is that the visionary's source of poetry is within, while the intellectual's sources are without — external — in "action, knowledge of things, and experience," as McCrosson puts it. De la Mare hastens to add that this does not make the intellectual's poetry any less good, but it is clear where his own preference lies.

A note to avoid confusion: The term "imagination" in the lecture "Rupert Brooke and the Intellectual Imagination" is used to refer to both the intellectual and the visionary. To simplify and clarify his language, de la Mare generally used the more conventional "reason" and "imagination" when discussing the same idea elsewhere.


The Listeners
"The Listeners" is probably Walter de la Mare's most famous poem. It narrates (in third person) the story of a mysterious man coming to a house in the night on horseback, and subsequently failing, to deliver a message and fulfill a promise. Nobody is there but the "Listeners" (named in the title), who seem to be merely spectral. It is apparent that "The Listeners" hear his knocking and request for assistance, however they choose to ignore it. Some people think that the poem represents missed opportunity on the part of the traveler. The house meant something to him, so he returned to it, but he came back too late and there was nothing left but shadows and memories. Alternatively he may have promised to deliver a message from an acquaintance : "Tell them I came, and no-one answered, but I did keep my word"

It is also sometimes thought to be referenced in The Third Policeman. The Narrator visits a house and knocks twice, but to no avail, as in "The Listeners".

Come Hither
Come Hither was an anthology, mostly of poetry with some prose. It has a frame story, and can be read on several levels. It was first published in 1923, and was a success; further editions followed. Alongside the children's literature aspect, it also provides a selection of the leading Georgian poets (from de la Mare's perspective). It is arguably also the best account of their 'hinterland', documenting thematic concerns and a selection of their predecessors.


Works

Novels
Henry Brocken (1904)
The Three Mulla Mulgars (1910) — also published as The Three Royal Monkeys
The Return (1910)
Memoirs of a Midget (1921)
At First Sight (1930)

Short story collections
The Riddle and Other Stories (1923)
Ding Dong Bell (1924)
Broomsticks and Other Tales (1925)
The Connoisseur and Other Stories (1926)
On the Edge (1930)
The Lord Fish (1930)
The Walter de la Mare Omnibus (1933)
The Wind Blows Over (1936)
The Nap and Other Stories (1936)
The Best Stories of Walter de la Mare (1942)
A Beginning and Other Stories (1955)
Eight Tales (1971)

Poetry
Songs of Childhood (1902)
The Listeners (1912)
Peacock Pie (1913)
The Marionettes (1918)
O Lovely England (1952)
Silver
"Happy England"

Plays
Crossings: A Fairy Play (1923)

Nonfiction
Some Women Novelists of the 'Seventies (1929)
Desert Islands and Robinson Crusoe (1930)

Anthologies edited
Come Hither (1923)
Behold, This Dreamer! (1939)

Notes
Walter de la Mare. PoemHunter.Com. Retrieved on 23 September 2007.
Sources
Bleiler, Everett (1948). The Checklist of Fantastic Literature. Chicago: Shasta Publishers, 96-97.
Imagination of the Heart:The Life of Walter de la Mare (1993) Theresa Whistler
Walter de la Mare (1966) Doris Ross McCrosso


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Daniel Defoe



Daniel Defoe was a British writer, journalist, and spy, who gained enduring fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest practitioners of the novel and helped popularize the genre in Britain. In some texts he is even referred to as one of the founders, if not the founder, of the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote over five hundred books, pamphlets, and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He was also a pioneer of economic journalism.



Biography


Daniel Foe was probably born in the parish of St. Giles Cripplegate, London. (Daniel later added the aristocratic sounding "De" to his name and on occasion claimed descent from the family of De Beau Faux.) Both the date and the place of his birth are uncertain with sources often giving dates of 1659 or 1661. His father, James Foe, though a member of the Butchers' Company, was a tallow chandler. In Daniel's early life he experienced first-hand some of the most unusual occurrences in English history: In 1664, when Defoe was probably about four years old, a Dutch fleet sailed up the River Thames and attacked London. In 1665 70,000 were killed by the plague. On top of all these catastrophes, the Great Fire of London (1666) hit Defoe's neighborhood hard, leaving only his and two other homes standing in the area.All of this happened before Defoe was around seven years old, and by the age of about twelve, Defoe's mother had died.[3] Both of his parents were Presbyterian dissenters, and he was educated in a Dissenting Academy at Stoke Newington run by Charles Morton (later vice-president of Harvard University).

Although Defoe was a Christian himself he decided not to become a dissenting minister, and entered the world of business as a general merchant, dealing at different times in hosiery, general woolen goods, and wine. Though his ambitions were great and he bought both a country estate and a ship (as well as civet cats to make perfume), he was rarely free of debt. In 1684 Defoe married a woman by the name of Mary Tuffley, receiving a dowry of £3,700. With his recurring debts, their marriage was most likely a difficult one. They had eight children, six of whom survived. In 1685, he joined the ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion, but gained a pardon by which he escaped the assizes of Judge George Jeffreys. In 1692, Defoe was arrested for payments of £700 (and his civets were seized), though his total debts may have amounted to £17,000. His laments were loud, and he always defended unfortunate debtors, but there is evidence that his financial dealings were not always honest.

Following his release, he probably traveled in Europe and Scotland, and it may have been at this time that he traded in wine to Cadiz, Porto, and Lisbon. By 1695 he was back in England, using the name "Defoe", and serving as a "commissioner of the glass duty", responsible for collecting the tax on bottles. In 1696, he was operating a tile and brick factory in Tilbury, Essex and thought to be living in nearby Chadwell St Mary.



Pamphleteering and prison
Defoe's first notable publication was An Essay upon Projects, a series of proposals for social and economic improvement, published in 1697. From 1697 to 1698, he defended the right of King William III to a standing army during disarmament after the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) had ended the War of the Grand Alliance (1689–97). His most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1697), defended the king against the perceived xenophobia of his enemies, satirising the English claim to racial purity. In 1701, Defoe, flanked by a guard of sixteen gentlemen of quality, presented the Legion's Memorial to the Speaker of the House of Commons, later his employer, Robert Harley. It demanded the release of the Kentish petitioners, who had asked Parliament to support the king in an imminent war against France.

Defoe's pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on July 31, 1703, principally on account of a pamphlet entitled "The Shortest Way with the Dissenters", in which he ruthlessly satirised the High church Tories, purporting to argue for the extermination of dissenters. However, according to legend, the publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects, and to drink to his health. The historicity of this story, however, is questioned by most scholars, although the scholar J. R. Moore later said that “no man in England but Defoe ever stood in the pillory and later rose to eminence among his fellow men.”

After his three days in the pillory, Defoe went into Newgate Prison. Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, brokered his release in exchange for Defoe's co-operation as an intelligence agent. Within a week of his release from prison, Defoe witnessed the Great Storm of 1703, which raged from 26–27 November, the only true hurricane ever to have made it over the Atlantic Ocean to the British Isles at full strength. It caused severe damage to London and Bristol, uprooted millions of trees, and over 8,000 people lost their lives, mostly at sea. The event became the subject of Defoe's The Storm (1704), a collection of eyewitness accounts of the tempest. In the same year he set up his periodical A Review of the Affairs of France, which supported the Harley ministry, chronicling the events of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–14). The Review ran tri-weekly without interruption until 1713. When Harley was ousted from the ministry in 1708 Defoe continued writing it to support Godolphin, then again to support Harley and the Tories in the Tory ministry of 1710 to 1714. After the Tories fell from power with the death of Queen Anne, it is widely thought Defoe continued doing intelligence work for the Whig government.



Later life and writings
The extent and particulars of Defoe's writing in the period from the Tory fall in 1714 to the publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719 is widely contested. Defoe comments on the tendency to attribute author-less tracts to him in his self-vindicatory Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715), a defence of his part in Harley's Tory ministry (1710–14). Other works that are thought to anticipate his novelistic career include: The Family Instructor (1715), an immensely successful conduct manual on religious duty; Minutes of the Negotiations of Monsr. Mesnager (1717), in which he impersonates the titular French plenipotentiary, who negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht (1713); and A Continuation of the Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy (1718), a satire on European politics and religion, professedly written by a Muslim in Paris.

From 1719 to 1724, Defoe published the novels for which he is now famous . In the final decade of his life, he also wrote conduct manuals, including Religious Courtship (1722), The Complete English Tradesman (1726), and The New Family Instructor (1727). He published a number of books decrying the breakdown of the social order, such as The Great Law of Subordination Considered (1724) and Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725), and works on the supernatural, like The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1726), and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). His works on foreign travel and trade include A General History of Discoveries and Improvements (1727) and Atlas Maritimus and Commercialis (1728). Perhaps his greatest achievement alongside the novels is the magisterial A tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–27), which provided a panoramic survey of British trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution.

Daniel Defoe died on April 26, 1731, probably whilst in hiding from his creditors. He was interred in Bunhill Fields, London, where his grave can still be visited.


Novels
Defoe's famous novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) tells of a man's shipwreck on a deserted island and his subsequent adventures. The author may have based his narrative on the true story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk. The work has been variously read as an allegory for the development of civilisation, as a manifesto of economic individualism, and as an expression of European colonial desires. But it also shows the importance of repentance and illustrates the strength of Defoe's religious convictions. Early critics, such as Robert Louis Stevenson, admired it, saying that the footprint scene in Crusoe was one of the four greatest in English literature, and most unforgettable.[2] It has inspired a new genre, the Robinsonnade, as works like Johann Wyss's The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) adapt its basic precis, and has provoked postcolonial responses, including J. M. Coetzee's Foe (1986). Two sequels followed, Defoe's Farther Adventures (1719) and his Serious Reflections (1720). Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726) in part parodies Defoe's adventure novel.

"One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand."

Crusoe in Defoe's famous novel, Robinson Crusoe
Defoe's next novel was Captain Singleton (1720), a bipartite adventure story whose first half covers a traversal of Africa, and whose second half taps into the contemporary fascination with piracy. It has been commended for its depiction of the homosocial relationship between the eponymous hero and his religious mentor, the Quaker, William Walters.

Colonel Jack (1722) follows an orphaned boy from a life of poverty and crime to colonial prosperity, military and marital imbroglios, and religious conversion, always guided by a quaint and misguided notion of becoming a gentleman.

Also in 1722 Defoe wrote Moll Flanders, another picaresque first-person narration of the fall and eventual redemption of a lone woman in seventeenth century England. The titular heroine appears as a whore, bigamist and thief, lives in The Mint, commits adultery and incest, yet manages to keep the reader's sympathy.

Moll Flanders and Defoe's final novel Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724) are examples of the remarkable way in which Defoe seems to inhabit his fictional (yet "drawn from life") characters, not least in that they are women. The latter narrates the moral and spiritual decline of a high society courtesan.

A work that is often read as if it were non-fiction is his account of the Great Plague of London in 1665: A Journal of the Plague Year, a complex historical novel published in 1722. In November of 1703, a hurricane-like storm hit London, now known as The Great Storm. (It remains one of the greatest storms in British history.) Yet another of the remarkable events in Defoe's life, the storm was the subject of his book The Storm. Defoe describes the aftermath of the incident this way: “The streets lay so covered with tiles and slates from the tops of the houses [. . .] that all the tiles in fifty miles round would be able to repair but a small part of it." Later, Defoe also wrote Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720), set during the Thirty Years War and the English Civil Wars.


Defoe and the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707
No fewer than 545 titles, ranging from satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets and volumes have been ascribed to Defoe (Note: in their Critical Bibliography (1998), Furbank and Owens argue for the much smaller number of 276 published items). His ambitious business ventures saw him bankrupt by 1692, with a wife and seven children to support. In 1703 he published a satirical pamphlet against the High Tories and in favour of religious tolerance entitled A short way with Dissenters. As has happened with ironical writings before and since, this pamphlet was widely misunderstood, but eventually its author was prosecuted for seditious libel, sentenced to be pilloried, fined 200 marks, and be detained at the Queen's pleasure.

In despair he wrote to William Paterson, the London Scot, and founder of the Bank of England and part instigator of the Darien scheme, who was in the confidence of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer, leading Minister and spymaster in the English Government. Harley accepted Defoe's services and released him in 1703. He immediately published The Review, which appeared weekly, then three times a week, written mostly by himself. This was the main mouthpiece of the English Government promoting the Act of Union 1707.

"Wherever God erects a house of prayer
the Devil always builds a chapel there;
And 'twill be found, upon examination,
the latter has the largest congregation."

— Defoe's The True-Born Englishman, 1701
Defoe began his campaign in The Review and other pamphlets aimed at English opinion, claiming that it would end the threat from the north, gaining for the Treasury an "inexhaustible treasury of men", a valuable new market increasing the power of England. By September 1706 Harley ordered Defoe to Edinburgh as a secret agent, to do everything possible to help secure acquiescence of the Treaty. He was very conscious of the risk to himself. Thanks to books such The Letters of Daniel Defoe, (edited by GH Healey, Oxford 1955) which are readily available far more is known about his activities than is usual with such agents.

His first reports were of vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind," he reported. Years later John Clerk of Penicuik, a leading Unionist, wrote in his memoirs that,

He was a spy among us, but not known as such, otherwise the Mob of Edinburgh would pull him to pieces.

Defoe being a Presbyterian, who suffered in England for his convictions, was accepted as an adviser to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and committees of the Parliament of Scotland. He told Harley that he was "privy to all their folly", but "Perfectly unsuspected as with corresponding with anybody in England". He was then able to influence the proposals that were put to Parliament and reported back:

Having had the honour to be always sent for the committee to whom these amendments were referrèd,
I have had the good fortune to break their measures in two particulars via the bounty on Corn and
proportion of the Excise.

For Scotland he used different arguments, even the opposite of those he used in England, for example, usually ignoring the English doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty. Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time. The same is true of a massive history of the Union which Defoe published in 1709 and which some historians still treat as a valuable contemporary source for their own works. Defoe took pains to give his history an air of objectivity by giving some space to arguments against the Union, but always having the last word for himself.

He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun, by just ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton, the official leader of the Squadrone Volante against the Union, who finally acted against his comrades in the decisive stages of the debate.

Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Parliament of Scotland which was so vehement for its independence from 1703 to 1705 became so supine in 1706. He received very little reward from his paymasters and, of course, no recognition for his services by the government. He made use of his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he actually admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland, which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union, was "not the case, but rather the contrary".

Defoe's description of Glasgow (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as a Gaelic translation for the town. The Gaelic Glas could mean grey or green, chu means dog or hollow. Glaschu probably actually means 'Green Hollow'. The "Dear Green Place", like much of Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local Tron minister urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God". The 'Dear Green Place' and "City of God" required government troops to put down the rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty, as at almost every mercat cross in Scotland.

When Defoe revisited in the mid 1720s he claimed that the hostility towards his party was, "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against".
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