Daniel Defoe

Daniel Foe — the nickname would only be changed by the author in 1695 to Defoe — (1660-1731), is considered by many to be the first English-language novelist. He was a merchant, economist, journalist and spy before writing his first novel, The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, at the age of sixty.
Having witnessed the Plague and the Great Fire of London as a child, he ended up becoming passionate about travel after getting to know countries such as France, Spain and the Netherlands in depth. With an extremely adventurous life, he was incarcerated for debts and fought for a brief time in the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion. A few years later he began to write political-satirical pamphlets that, again, would lead him to prison. Through the intervention of a Tory minister, he was eventually released and for eleven years he became a secret agent and political journalist for the Tories. He delighted throughout his life in the representation of various roles and disguises, using them to great effect as a spy, and wrote more than five hundred books, pamphlets, and journalistic articles covering topics such as politics, crime, religion, geography, marriage, psychology, and the supernatural. He died in the city of London in 1731, reportedly "a lethargy".