ABSTRACT
This is a selection of representative comments from a huge volume of references made in Defoe’s lifetime (see Introduction, pp. 9–12, and Appendix I). The extracts chosen illustrate the polemical climate in which Defoe passed the greater part of his writing career. Works such as The True-Born Englishman, The Shortest Way with the Dissenters and The Secret History of the White Staff excited a particularly vehement response. After 1714, though certain books (such as the popular Crusoe, for which see No. 3) provoked a strong reaction, there were in general fewer rejoinders published.
