ABSTRACT
The Coda offers insight into the most recent uses of eighteenth-century fiction in socio-political contexts against the background of the so-called Age of Trump (2016–2020). By studying material that ranges from political newspaper articles to satirical cartoons, it evaluates the potential of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, Samuel Richardson’s Pamela and Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative to respond to the topical issues of the here and now. It also ponders the more general question of why to read the eighteenth-century novel today.
