ABSTRACT
Writers who contributed to the party political debates of the early eighteenth century were routinely charged with deceiving and cheating their readers. Daniel Defoe was no exception; indeed his talents in this respect were soon notorious. Early in his writing career, Defoe’s activities led his fellow pamphleteers to compare him to some of the most infamous political conspirators of recent decades: William Fuller and the alleged Popish Plotters of the 1680s.1 Nowadays, Defoe is commonly enrolled alongside illustrious canonical novelists, but his contemporary placement in distinctly disreputable company typifies the fact that these said illustrious novelists were frequently enmeshed in disputes over political deception and authorial roguery. Not only Defoe but also – as later chapters will show – Swift, Richardson and Fielding were involved in efforts to anticipate and respond to readers’ sceptical, and often explicitly political, critiques of their fictions as shams. In Defoe’s case, his reputation for duplicity was to follow him throughout his career with major consequences for the interpretation of his work. This chapter examines Defoe’s relations with his early readers, beginning with The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters (1702). This pamphlet, which landed Defoe in the pillory, exemplifies the way early readers’ responses can illuminate cruxes in modern critical debate. I then move on to consider Defoe’s periodical The Review and three of the works he termed ‘Histories’: The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1722) and Roxana or, as it was known to its first readers, The Fortunate Mistress (1724).2 Defoe was repeatedly involved in skirmishes with (to use his own term) ‘ill-disposed’ readers, whom he regarded as wilfully misconstruing his works in disregard of his guidance and protestations.3 When viewed with interests of modern criticism in mind, the responses of many of Defoe’s early readers can indeed appear misguided, trivial or downright bizarre; as a result, critics have often ignored these reactions or joined Defoe in belittling them. Yet the interpretations of early readers deserve attention, not least because they are sometimes better guides to understanding authorial intent and the construction of works than may at first appear to be the case. This is not simply a question of early readers being better placed to perceive an author’s intent,
1 The Fox with his Fire-brand Unkennell’d and Insnar’d (1703), p. 3. 2 In his role as editor, Defoe described each of these works as a ‘History’. [Defoe], The
Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719, ESTC TO72264), A2v; [Defore] The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (1721 [for 1722]), p. ii; [Defoe], The Fortunate Mistress (1724), A3v. Future references are to these editions unless otherwise stated.
