ABSTRACT
Daniel Defoe, the master of literary disguise, who even died in hiding, sets us a puzzle from the outset by leaving no firm evidence of when and where he was born, or what his family background was. Captain Singleton was published a year after Defoe’s King of Pirates and has a long sub-title listing the travels of Captain Singleton in Africa and the West and East Indies. Defoe’s refusal to reveal the origins of Bob Singleton is far less peremptory. Singleton agrees that it is most appropriate for people whose lives have been remarkable “to insist much upon their originals, give full account of their families, and the histories of their ancestors”. In Captain Singleton, vicariously, Defoe dares to go further. By making the Captain, in effect, an orphan, free of all early parental influences, he gave him a blanket immunity able, without culpability, to be thoroughly anti-social.
