Daniel Defoe was born Daniel Foe in London in 1660. It was perhaps inevitable that Defoe an oııtspoken man would become a political joumalist. As a Puritan he believed God had given him a mission to print the truth that is to proselytize on religion and politics and in fact he became a prolific pamphleteer satirizing the hypocrisies of both Church and State. Defoe admired William III and his poem The Tnıe-Born Englishman (1701) won him the king's friendship. Bütan ill-timed satire on High Church extremists The Shortest Way with the Dissenters published during Qııeen Anne's reign resulted in his being pilloried and imprisoned forseditious libel in 1703. At 59 Defoe turned to fiction completing The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York Mariner (1719) partly based on the sağa ofAlexander Selkirk a Scottish sailor; MollFlanders (1722); ColonelJack (1722); A Journal of the Plague Year (1722); and Roxana or the Fortunate Mistress (1724