The Religious and Didactic Writings of Daniel Defoe

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General Editors: W R Owens and P N Furbank
Volume Editors: Liz Bellamy, J A Downie, P N Furbank, John McVeagh, W R Owens and G A Starr

Works of Daniel Defoe
The Pickering Masters

Bringing together an impressive collection of his most important and influential instructional treatises, the Religious and Didactic Writings of Daniel Defoe will be an exciting addition to the Works of Daniel Defoe from the prestigious Pickering Masters series.

Defoe’s era saw much popular interest in the instructional handbook and behaviour manual. Forming a highly significant part of his own oeuvre, Defoe adopted this style of literature with great effect, allowing him to explore fully some of his more cherished – and sometimes salacious – subjects: religion, immorality, sexual intrigue, social order, education and the duties and responsibilities of a merchant.

Earlier protagonists such as Isaak Watson (Compleat Angler) and Henry Peacham (The Compleat Gentleman) produced works – at least in their titles – that Defoe would later recall. But, ever the pioneer, Defoe broke new ground by extending the genre to business and the professions. His The Complete English Tradesman offered very practical, human and shrewd advice to all those concerned in it – merchants, shopkeepers and apprentices alike. In The Family Instructor, among other handbooks, his innovative approach to the use of dialogue and fiction displayed a vividness and psychological acumen one would more readily associate with his novels – indeed its sales were beaten only by Robinson Crusoe - with new editions appearing well into the nineteenth century.

With his love of dilemma and paradox, exemplified in Conjugal Lewdness, his sharp observations on the blessings that education can bring – and the fatal consequences of its neglect – in Of Royall Educacion, the ten volumes making up Defoe’s Religious and Didactic Writings are a feast for Defoe scholars and all academics of eighteenth-century history, religion and literature.

Edited to the highest academic standards, the set will offer readers accurate texts and a wealth of editorial matter including introductions, full explanatory notes and a consolidated index to the ten volumes.

Sample pages

• Tables from The Compleat English Tradesman, Vol. II (1727), showing production and manufacturing areas around Britain

Contents

Volumes 1 and 2
The Family Instructor, Vol. I (1715); The Family Instructor, Vol. II (1718)

Volume 3
A New Family Instructor (1727)

Volume 4
Religious Courtship (1722)

Volume 5
Conjugal Lewdness (1727)

Volume 6
The Poor Man’s Plea (1698); The Great Law of Subordination Consider’d (1724)

Volumes 7 and 8
The Compleat English Tradesman, Vol. I (1725); A Supplement to the Compleat English Tradesman (1727 [for 1726]); The Compleat English Tradesman, Vol. II (1727)

Volume 9
The Commentator (1720)

Volume 10
The Compleat English Gentleman [1728–9]; Of Royall Educacion [1698?–1727?]

Reviews

'Of all the major English writers, Defoe's oeuvre has been the most inaccessible...the Pickering & Chatto edition is most welcome.'
– Paula Backsheider, Eighteenth-Century Studies

Related titles

• A Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe
• Conduct Literature for Women, Part III, 1720–1770
• Defoe's Review 1704–13
• A Political Biography of Daniel Defoe
• Satire, Fantasy and Writings on the Supernatural by Daniel Defoe
• The Novels of Daniel Defoe
• The Political and Economic Writings of Daniel Defoe
• Writings on Travel, Discovery and History by Daniel Defoe

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