Old Hampshire Mapped
Introduction
Defoe's TourThe following extracts are taken from:-
Defoe, Daniel & Rhys, Ernest (ed): 1724 & 1930 (about): Tour Through England and Wales & Everyman's Library (1930s edn): Dent, J M and Sons: vol.1: typeset from the verbatim reprint 1927, of the 1st editionA more accessible edition, in print [2001], with a useful introduction, but unfortunately abridged, is:-
Defoe, Daniel & Rogers, Pat (ed): 1724 & 1986: Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain: Penguin Books: : ISBN 0 14 043066 0
Daniel Foe was the son of James Foe, a tallow chandler or butcher, Cripplegate, London, born about 1661. He used the name Defoe from about 1695. He was a Puritan and, by turns, a hosiery merchant, a soldier in the Duke of Monmouth's rebellion, a secret agent for William III in England and Scotland, producer of the Review - a pro government newspaper, and a writer. He wrote on geography, politics, religion, economics, etc, etc. Fiction was the product of his later years; Robinson Crusoe, Moll Flanders, Journal of the Plague Year, etc. The Tour ... was published in three volumes 1724-26 as a guide book. Daniel Defoe died at his lodgings in Ropemakers Alley, Moorfields, London, buried in what is now Bunhill Fields, 1731.
The Tour ... is an imaginative work; keenly reporting places and events, theorising on political issues ... but also making factual errors, even guessing, and perhaps exagerating for a good tale. He was a liberal, humane and moral writer. The book is an eloquent description of Great Britain in the early eighteenth century; a time before industrialisation, a period when communications were poor but improving.
