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WHO LIVED EIGHT AND TWENTY YEARS IN AN UNINHABITED ISLAND, ON THE COAST OFAMERICA, NEAR THE MOUTH OF THE GREAT RIVER OROONOQUE, Including an Account of HIS DELIVERANCE THENCE, AND HIS AFTER SURPRISING ADVENTURES: If ever the story of any private mans adventures in the world were worth making public, and were acceptable when published, the Editor of this account thinks this will be so.The wonders of this mans life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant; the life of one man being scarce capable of a greater variety.The story is told with modesty, with seriousness, and with a religious application of events to the uses to which wise men always apply them, viz. to the instruction of others by this example, and to justify and honour the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances, let them happen how they will.The editor believes this narrative to be a just history of fact; neither is their any appearance of fiction in it: and though he is well aware there are many, who on account of the very singular preservations the author met with, will give it the name of romance; yet in which ever of these lights it shall be viewed, he imagines, that the improvement of it, as well as the diversion, as to the instruction of the reader, will be the same; and as such, he thinks, without farther compliment to the world, he does them a great service in the publication.

The father of Daniel Defoe was a butcher in the parish of St. Giless, Cripplegate, London. In this parish, probably, Daniel Defoe was born in 1661, the year after the restoration of Charles II. The boys parents wished him to become a dissenting minister, and so intrusted his education to a Mr. Morton who kept an academy for the training of nonconformist divines. How long Defoe staid at this school is not known. He seems to think himself that he staid there long enough to become a good scholar; for he declares that the pupils were "made masters of the English tongue, and more of them excelled in that particular than of any school at that time." If this statement be true, we can only say that the other schools must have been very bad indeed. Defoe never acquired a really good style, and can in no true sense be called a "master of the English tongue."Nature had gifted Defoe with untiring energy, a keen taste for public affairs, and a special aptitude for chicanery and intrigue. These were not qualities likely to advance him in the ministry, and he wisely refused to adopt that profession. With a young mans love for adventure and a dissenters hatred for Roman Catholicism, he took part in the Duke of Monmouths rebellion (1685) against James II. More fortunate than three of his fellow students, who were executed for their share in this affair, Defoe escaped the hue and cry that followed the battle of Sedgemoor, and after some months concealment set up as a wholesale8 merchant in Cornhill. When James II. was deposed in 1688, and the Protestant William of Orange elected to the English throne, Defoe hastened to give in his allegiance to the new dynasty. In 1691 he published his first pamphlet, "A New Discovery of an Old Intrigue, a Satire leveled at Treachery and Ambition." This is written in miserable doggerel verse.

Publicada en 1719, la historia de Robinson, exiliado en la soledad de una isala, y su travesía de supervivencia, es hoy un mito del hombre moderno. Esta edición recupera la traducción de Julio Cortázar, a la vez esta precedida por un imprescindible prologo de J.M. Coetzee, quien a su vez ha reinterpretado este clasico en su novela Foe.

Moll Flanders recounts the story of her extraordinary life, from her birth in Newgate prison to her declining years in married prosperity. After being seduced in the home of her adoptive family she lives off her wits and her beauty, as a whore, 'five times a Wife', and a thief, and is eventually transported to Virginia for her crimes. Rich and penitent, Moll reflects on a world that is both good and evil, just as the reader both abhors and admires her. Arguably the first English novel, Moll Flanders is also a romance, its heroine in perpetual search for a lost familial paradise.

Bob Singleton, típico aventurero del siglo XVIII, corrió aventuras para llenar un libro: fue raptado de niño, se embarcó muy joven, participó en un motín, atravesó África, se enriqueció, se arruinó, se hizo pirata, recorrio mares e islas desde las Canarias a las Indias Occidentales y desde el Cabo de Buena Esperanza a las Orientales, y no hubo barco que surcara el mar sin sufrir el acoso del pirata. Pero Defoe, pragmatico hasta en las cosas del espiritu, le envia en alta mar un rayo providencial que le hace reflexionar sobre su vida y su destino. Curiosa pirueta final que, como ha escrito Prospero Marchesini, ilumina con singular eficacia la mentalidad de un pais y de un siglo.

A los quince años y con una dote de 2.000 libras, la heroína de esta novela se casa con el hijo de un fabricante de cerveza de la City londinense. Abandonada por él, se encuentra con cinco niños y ni un penique para alimentarlos. En tales circunstancias, las imprevistas atenciones de su casero conducen a una situación cada vez menos equívoca. Luego vendrán un príncipe alemán, un mercader holandés, el mismísimo rey de Inglaterra… y una carrera brillante llena de secretos, amenazas, huidas, crímenes y dinero. Inédita en español hasta hoy, narra la historia de una mujer que no quiere ser esclava de los hombres y que instituye, fuera del matrimonio, su propio negocio.

Robinson Crusoe es un marinero de York que, en una expedición por África en barco, es capturado por unos piratas y se convierte en esclavo. Consigue escapar y es ayudado por un capitán de marina portugues, Ruben Catalin, que se dirige a Brasil. En este ultimo lugar se establece por un tiempo pero surge la opcion de navegar nuevamente a Africa en busca de negros para asistir las necesidades domesticas de el y un grupo de inmigrantes en Brasil; es

The young Robinson Crusoe ignores his father''s advice and decides to become a sailor. But Crusoe is soon caught up in violent storms and finds himself shipwrecked on a remote island where he must li

El Diablo es uno de los protagonistas preeminentes de la cultura occidental. La Iglesia le ha atribuido, desde su fundación, todo tipo de crímenes, maldades y travesuras. Ahora bien, quizás Satanás no es tan poderoso y despiadado como lo pintan aquellos que a lo largo de los siglos han llevado la voz cantante en materia de religion.Daniel Defoe, el genial creador de Robinson Crusoe, publico en 1726 esta Historia del Diablo en la que sigue sus huellas y testimonios desde los origenes de la humanidad hasta la epoca moderna, haciendo gala de sus vastos conocimientos politicos, historicos y literarios, de su erudicion biblica y, sobre todo, de la sutil ironia que caracterizo su obra. Obra a un tiempo critica y amena, polemica y descriptiva, erudita y panfletaria, su lectura sigue siendo imprescindible tanto para los interesados por su inmortal protagonista como para los seguidores de su no menos inmortal autor.

Moll Flanders, child of a convict in Newgate Prison, was born in Newgate, and had a life of continued variety for threescore years. She was twelve years a whore, five times a wife (whereof even once to her own Brother), she was twelve years a thief, at last grew rich, lived honest and died a penitent. Written from her own memorandums.An exciting social novel of that time.