DD was the founder of the realistic novel.

He was also a brilliant journalist and in many ways the father

of modern English periodicals. He founded and paved the way for many magazines ( "The Revue", "The
Spectator").
DD was born in London, his father, a butcher, was wealthy enough to give his son a good education. D
was to become a priest, but it was his cherished desire to become wealthy. His wish was never fullfield.
D was banckrupt several times. He was always in deep debt. The only branch of business in which he
proved succesful was journalism and literature. When D was about 23 he started writting pamphlets on
question of the hour. He started writing pamphlets praising King William III, who was supported by the
whig party. No matter in whose defence his brilliant pamphlets were written their irony was so subtle,
that the enemy didn't understand it at first. But as soon as his enemy realised the real character of the
pamphlets D was sentenced to 7 years of inprisonment. It was a cruel punishment, and when they came
for him to be set free, people carried him on their shoulders. This was the climax of his political career
and the end of it. In 1719, he tried his hand at another kind of literature - fiction, and wrote the novel he
is now best known: "Robison Crusoe". After the book was published, D became famous and rich and
was able to pay his creditors in full. Other novels which D were also very much talked about during his
lifetime, but we do not hear much about them now. For example "Captain Singleton"(1720), "Moll
Flanders"(1722).
Defoe was one of the first to write stories about believable characters in realistic situations using simple
prose. He achieved literary immortality when in April 1719 he published Robinson Crusoe, a travelogue,
which was based partly on the memoirs of voyagers and castaways, such as Alexander Selkirk, who
spent on his island four years and four months. The first edition was printed in London by a publisher of
a popular books, W. Taylor. No author's name was given. Although Defoe wrote it in the first person,
his narrative voice is not overwhelmingly subjective. Throughout his life, Defoe himself was also
traveler, whose voyages included visits to France, Spain, the Low Countries, Italy, and Germany.
During the remaining years, Defoe concentrated on books rather than pamphlets. At the age of 62 he
published MOLL FLANDERS, A JOURNAL OF THE PLAGUE YEAR and COLONEL JACK. His
last great work of fiction, ROXANA, appeared in 1724. Defoe's choice of the protagonist in Moll
Flanders reflected his interest in the female experience. Moll is born in Newgate, where her mother is
under sentence of death for theft. Her sentence is commuted to transportation to Virginia. The
abandoned child is educated by a gentlewoman. Moll suffers romantic disillusionment, when she is
ruined at the hands of a cynical male seducer. She becomes a whore and a thief, but finally she gains the
status of a gentlewoman through the spoils of a successful colonial plantation.
Johnathan Swift ( November 30 , 1667 – October 19 , 1745 ) wasan Irish cleric, satirist , essayist,
political pamphleteer (firstfor Whigs then for Tories), and poet, famous for works like Gulliver's Travels
, A Modest Proposal , A Journal to Stella , The Drapier's Letters , The Battle of the Books , and A Tale
of a Tub . Swift is probably the foremost prose satirist in the English language ,although he is less well
known for his poetry . Swift published all of
his works under pseudonyms — such as Lemuel Gulliver , Isaac Bickerstaff , M.B. He is also known for
being “amaster of 2 styles of satire; the Horatian and Juvenalian styles”.
In 1704 Swift published his first important works (written earlier,while he was living with Temple),
which are among the masterpieces ofhis satirical genius. In 'The Battle of the Books' he supports
Temple,who had taken the side of the Ancients in a hotly debated and very futile quarrel then being
carried on by French and English writers as to whether ancient or modern authors are the greater.