Backscheider, Paula R., Daniel Defoe: His Life, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.

In this highly regarded biography of Defoe,
Backscheider reveals new information about Defoe's
secret career as a double agent, his daring business
ventures, and his cat-and-mouse games with those
who wanted to control the press.

Defoe, Daniel, A Journal of the Plague Year, Oxford University Press, 1998.

This book was originally published the same year as
Moll Flanders and is a compelling account of the
Great Plague of 1665. In the book, Defoe scans the
streets and alleyways of stricken London in an effort
to record the extreme suffering of the victims of the
Great Plague, which occurred during Defoe's early
childhood. The book is both horrifying and sympathetic
and offers a frightening vision of the city laid
to waste.

Hay, Douglas, and Nicholas Rogers, Eighteenth-Century English Society: Shuttles and Swords, Oxford University Press, 1997.

Drawing on recent...