Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) was born in London, the son of a butcher and candlestick merchant. Initially he became a businessman but eventually went bankrupt...twice...so he turned to writing. Some scholars have attributed at least 570 works to him, though more recently other scholars have reexamined this and removed many of the works from the list, saying these attributions were based solely on very weak internal evidence. Still, Defoe was a very prolific writer. Much of his work was political and satirical, and one of his pamphlets even landed him in prison for three months. For twenty-five years he earned his income primarily from writing for newspapers and he even published his own periodical single-handedly for nine years. His first love was politics and he was very involved with the different political parties, for a while writing for one while he was actually a secret agent for the other. For the last twelve years of his life he focused on writing books and he is now primarily remembered as a novelist. His best known novels are Moll Flanders (1721) and Robinson Crusoe (1719). Some claim he's also the author of A General History of the Robberies and Murder of the Most Notorious Pyrates, but this is still hotly debated.