ABSTRACT
Like a peacock spreading his tail and bowing to the peahen when courting, so, it seems, it was customary in Daniel Defoe’s day for a City gentleman when courting his intended to present her with an anthology of improving texts and stories. When Defoe, sent to Mary Tuffley, his gift of Historical Collections, he was following an established convention; and the flowery dedication, the self-abasement before the “Divine Lady” and the declarations of his “own Ignorance and Insufficiency” were all part of a fashion where the would-be lover lay prostrate. Certainly the ambivalence of so many men who both want and resent the status of husband could have played a considerable part in Defoe’s protest, one expressed in the slaying of Irene even as he was coveting Mary. Albeit half-heartedly, and often superficially, literary critics acknowledge as much even as they hesitate to explore the full implications.
