Daniel Defoe makes the novel fashionable

On this day in 1703 the novelist and pamphleteer Daniel Defoe was placed in a pillory for the crime of seditious libel after publishing a politically satirical pamphlet, but was pelted with flowers.

Defoe is best remembered for his book Robinson Crusoe which in 2013 was voted number two in the list of best novels written in English, by the Guardian newspaper. It is easy to see why. Supposedly based on a true story, the hero and his sidekick Friday overcome terrible problems to survive on a desert island until they are rescued. Written over three hundred years ago, when the novel was a virtually unknown genre, its characterisation, pace and structure...

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