Table Of ContentThe Text
of Great Britain
Theme and Design
in Defoe's Tour
Pat Rogers
DEUIWARE
Newark: University of Delaware Press
London: Associated University Presses
Contents
Was it any wonder that England was the most widely explored
country on earth? In a sense, nothing was unknown in England
it was just differently interpreted.
-Paul Theroux, 'The Kingdom by the Sea
Abbreviations 9
Preface 11
For Europe is absent. This is an island and therefore
Unreal. Acknowledgments 15
-Wo H. Auden, "Journey to Iceland"
Introduction 19
Part I: Pre-'Text
1. The Making of Volume I 61
2. The Making of Volumes II and 1II 80
3. The Uses of Plagiarism: Camden's Britannia in the 'four 111
Part II: Text
4. The Rhetoric of Growth and Decay 119
5. The Georgic Element in the 'four 135
6. Speaking within Compass: The Ground Covered in the
Tour and Captain Singleton 147
Part HI: Context
7. The Wonderless Wonders of the Peak: Defoe and the
Discourse of Tourism 161
8. Defoe's Buildings of England 174
9. Transformations: Defoe and the Making of Modern Britain 188
Conclusion 202
Appendix A: Samuel Richardson and Later Editions of the
'four 2~
Appendix B: Defoe's Antiquarian Library 211
Appendix C: Parallels in the 'four and Memoirs of a Cavalier 212
Notes 213
Bibliography 232
Index 234
Abbreviations
The following abbreviations are used in the text:
Backscheider Paula R. Backscheider, Daniel Defoe: His Life (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989).
Camden William Camden, Britannia. ed. Edmund Gibson (1695;
reprint, Newton Abbot, Devon: David Cd Charles, 1971).
Chec~list J. R. Moore, A Chec~list of the Writings of Daniel Defoe
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1960).
Lee William Lee, Daniel Defoe: His Life and Recently
Discovered Writings, 3 vols. (1869; reprint, Hildesheim:
Georg Olds, 1968).
Letters The Letters of Daniel Defoe. ed. G. H. Healey (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1955).
'rour Daniel Defoe, A 'rour thro' the Whole Island of Great
Britain (1724-26; reprint in 2 vols., London: Frank Cass;
New York: A. M. Kelley, 1968). All references in the text
follow this edition.
9
Preface
DANIEL Defoe's 'Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain has long
been recognized as a key book of its age. It has been lauded by the
most eminent historians as a prime source of understanding for Britain
in the eighteenth century (indeed, for understanding the birth of the
modern, on a global scale), and remains one of the most-quoted works
in general surveys of the period. However, the 'four has still not been
accorded the detailed treatment by literary scholars that it ought to
have enjoyed. This is a pity, since it ranks with Robinson Crusoe,
Moll Flanders, and Roxana as one of the richest and most enduring
items among Defoe's astonishingly diverse output. A recent abridg
ment, sumptuously illustrated, has joined earlier editions to give the
work renewed currency. But until late years, travel writing was a
comparatively neglected genre, and we still do not have a well
established poetics of the form, though studies such as Charles L.
Batten's Pleasurable Instruction: Form and Convention in Eighteenth
Century 'Travel Literature (1978) have gone a little way to remedy
this deficiency. Nevertheless, we are far from doing critical justice to
the 'Tour, or to other classics of eighteenth-century travel writing.
The aim of this book is to provide a basis for reassessment of the
work by describing the elements that went into its making. In the
introduction I have tried to set out enough of a conceptual framework
to make the more detailed chapters that follow fully intelligible. This
task involves putting the 'Tour into the historical context of travel
writing, and the development of a rhetoric of tourism (an aspect devel
oped in chapter 7). I also seek to locate the book within Defoe's wider
oeuvre: although extensive comparisons and links are not developed
(beyond a sustained parallelism explored in chapter 6), enough should
have been said to indicate how we might apply some of this book's
findings to the better-known novels. Other aspects of the 'Tour's ideol
ogy are considered, notably its political bearings and especially its
treatment of the South Sea Bubble of 1720, a recent national disaster
that had strong personal overtones for Defoe. Finally, I attempt to
illuminate the "design" of the work, that is to say its formal structure,
along with the intellectual attitudes supporting and supported by
that structure.
11
12 PREFACE PREFACE 13
The main body of this study is divided into three parts dealing organism in the throes of a dynamic urge toward "improvement."
respectively ~ith "Pre-Text," "Text," and "Context." Three 'chapters Sometimes the system appears to have achieved equilibrium, at others
are grouped each part. The first group concerns itself with the the competing energies of change and stability produce a situation of
In
actual circumstances of writing-the production of the text, in the conflict, which Defoe's narrative and organil:ational strategies attempt
sense of when and how the 'four came into existence, including the to resolve.
nature, scope and timing of Defoe's research for the book. Chapter 1 This chapter leads directly into the conclusion, where I summaril:e
cons,d~rs In detail the composition of the first volume, while chapter Defoe's effort to provide a verbal enactment of the scope of national
2 conSiders that of Its two successors. In both cases I wish to show life, and a literary equivalent of its identity at the start of the Han
that the text was based on a more up-to-date sense of the nation than overian era. An appendix briefly considers some of the afterlife of the
has generally been allowed, especially for the regions of Britain nearest 'Tour, involving the most significant among its later publishers and
to London (with which Defoe was always most familiar and which editors, Samuel Richardson, as well as possible distribution through
occupy much of the .first two volumes). Following this, chapter 3 the chapbook trade. It should not be forgotten that the 'Tour was one
assesses the contributIOn to the text made by raids on Defoe's prede of the most popular works of Defoe for several generations (when his
cessor in topographical writing, William Camden, and more specifi novels apart from Crusoe were largely forgotten) and survived in
cally on the editIOn of Brltanma put out by Edmund Gibson and his revised fonn into the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
collaborators in 1695. Defoe acknowledges some of his debt to Cam 'The 'Text of Great Britain was first conceived twenty-five years ago,
den,. but occludes his borrowing it; many other places. One prolonged and many of the findings have been presented on scattered occasions
sectIOn of plagiarism IS discussed order to illustrate Defoe's habits in the interim. But they have been reexamined for the purposes of
In
at times of greatest stress, that is in the absence of real information this book, the materials checked and mistakes corrected, and conclu·
of his own. sions have been reevaluated in the light of developing scholarship.
Part II deals with issues surrounding the method and content of Some earlier conjectures have been abandoned for lack of evidence,
the 'Tour. Thus, chapter 4 considers an aspect of the style of the work and new suggestions offered. In chapters 1 and 2, I have deleted some
its continual opposition of images of growth and decay, with a view t~ merely corroborative documentation when the facts are sufficiently
understanding Defoe's complex attitudes toward change in the social established without it. Other portions of the book have been planned
landscape around him. This figurative technique serves, in fact, to to round out the coverage of key issues. Chapters 7 and 8, together
express a particular vision of the state of Britain, as it negotiated its with the conclusion, are wholly new, as is the majority of the intro
ua~sition. from the old semi feudal world into a commercial and "po duction and of chapter 9. There are significant additions to everyone
hte clvlltl:atlOn. Next, chapter 5, a pervasive Virgilian theme in of these sections.
In
the work is identified and its contribution to the texture of the writing There is inevitably some overlap between chapters, as the same
IS analYl:ed. Chapter 6 compares the ways in which Defoe describes material is processed from a different angle. Consequently, a few quo
progress across land in the 'Tour and in a fictional work, set in a part tations from the text appear more than once in this book. I hope this
of the world he never visited-Captain Singleton. is forgivable, as it is the words of Defoe-and not my own-that
Part III moves into historical and ideological bearings of the 'Tour. are repeated.
The "context"supplied is variously that of the natural landscape, the Overall, I have sought to unravel some of the threads that went
man-made enVironment, and the general march of the British economy. into the complex fabric of the 'four, and to reveal its rich literary, as
Chapter 7 deals with an extensive passage in which Defoe mocks the well as historical, interest, as a text expressive of the dynamic state
conventional panegyrics of the Derbyshire "Peak District," a site of of a nation that it evokes with such particularity and gusto. The
the emergent tourist industry and a locus of standard touristic rhetoric term"design" has been used to convey the intellectual ordonnance that
in topographical writing. After this, in chapter 8, comes an account governs the entire work. Some of the overtones of this word in English
of the way in which Defoe treats architecture, an element in the 'Tour are reinforced in the Italian term disegno. current in criticism that
that has be~n almost entirely neglected despite extensive coverage in was being written in Defoe's youth. It meant an architect's ground
the text. Fmally, chapter 9 assesses Defoe's account of Britain as a plan, but also a plot or fable. Defoe creates in a way a mythic Britain,
social and economic entity. The 'Tour depicts the nation as a large as selective in some of its emphases as the "fables" or legends of Brut
14 PREFACE
in Geoffrey of Monmouth, and the plot of the three volumes may be
said to body forth this myth. In the following chapters, several aspects
of design are explored: the shape of the nation as displayed in topo
graphic terms, the social and economic system that fuels the activity
of Britain, the literary and antiquarian template on which modern
Acknowledgments
experience is constructed. The 'four may be seen as an elaborate work
of rhetorical engineering that emplots these separate designs. All com
bine to form a book of inexhaustible factual information and great
imaginative richness. I
am grateful to Beth Latshaw for her help in preparing the manuscript
for publication, and to Adrienne Condon for careful proofreading.
Two anonymous readers for the University of Delaware Press made
helpful suggestions that have led to considerable changes and, I hope,
many improvements.
Some portions of the book have appeared in a different form as
follows:
Parts of the introduction are based on material in my edition of the
'four (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971), as well as an article,
"Literary Art in Defoe's Tour,» Eighteenth Century Studies, 6 (1972-
73): 153-85. This article is also used in chapter 4.
Chapter 1 is a revised version (shorn of some detail) in Bulletin of
the New Yor~Public Library, 78 (1975): 431-50; and similarly chapter
2 of an essay in Prose Studies: 3 (1980), 109-37.
Chapter 5 draws on an essay in English Miscellany, 22 (1971): 93-
106. Chapter 6 is a slightly revised version of an article in Studies in
the Literary Imagination, 15 (1982): 103-13.
Chapter 9 makes use of material in my introduction to editions of
the 'four published by the Folio Society (London, 1982), and by Webb
and Bower (Exeter, 1989).
Appendix A includes information first used in an essay in Studies
in Bibliography, 28 (1975): 305-7, and one in The Library, 6.6
(1984): 275-79.
I am grateful to the publishers and editors for permission to reprint
this material in a new context.
It should be added that a version of chapter 7 was given as the
plenary address to the Congress of the Canadian Society for
Eighteenth-Century Studies, at the Memorial University of New
foundland, StJohn's, Newfoundland, in 1992. Thanks are due to Don
Nichol for his kind reception and to other participants who made
valuable comments in discussion.
15
Introduction
Diagrammatic Representation of Journeys
The exact course 01 journeys is nol shown in detail DANIEL Defoe produced his 'Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great
Britain in three volumes between May 1724 and August 1726. Evi
dence assembled in chapter 1 below suggests that the actual writing
John 0' Groats of the first volume was performed in late 1722 and 1723. We do
Glasgow
not know the exact date of Defoe's birth, but his biographer, Paula
Backscheider, supports the view that it probably took place in the fall
Carlisle Edinburgh of 1660.1 If so, it was during the composition of the initial volume
that Defoe reached his own "grand climacteric." The first part of
Berwick
Robinson Crusoe had emerged during his sixtieth year, and Moll Flan
ders in his sixty-third. The Oxford English Dictionary explains the
term "climacteric" like this: "A critical stage in human life; a point at
which a person was supposed to be especially liable to changes in
health or fortune .... Grand climacteric ... the sixty-third year of life
... supposed to be specially critical." It was a more or less formal
marker for the onset of the status of a senior: modern retirement is
only a pale shadow of the notion. So the great works of the 1720s,
the final decade of Defoe's life, are the products of one who was
considered by others, and must have thought himself, an elderly man.
But Britain itself was passing through a sort of climacteric, as it
reached a new access of nationhood. Defoe wrote in the first years of
Walpole's long sway, as the Hanoverian dynasty consolidated itself
the 'Tour was written just after the first Jacobite rising, just before the
second. More directly, it appeared a very few years after the South
lilustmtion Nalhan A. Haim
Sea Bubble, the traumatic national stock market crash that awakened
many memories in Daniel Defoe, a former trader who had twice gone
bankrupt and had known the debtor's jail. The country stood on the
brink of great imperial expansion (something Defoe half anticipated,
though not in the right corners of the globe), and immense commercial
and industrial development. Defoe lived in an age that historians have
seen as marked by "the growth of political stability" but also by "the
financial revolution. "2 In short, Britain was a country poised for tran
sition into the modern world, yet still deeply rooted in traditional
practices and institutions. Defoe was the ideal commentator, as a man
raised in the seventeenth century, with a morally conservative out-
19
20 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION 21
look, but yet one who admired "improvement," growth, and above would be the Atlas Maritimus C9' Commercial is, to which Defoe made
all the dynamism of trade. major contributions. It did not appear until 1728, but had been in
Again and again in the 'four, he stresses his aim of describing things preparation as early as 1719, when it was trailed in advertisements
as they actually are: "If N.ovelty pleases," we read on the very first attached to The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. But by 1724
page of the work, "here is the Present State of the Country, the Im Defoe had also written much on such matters as the African company,
provement, as well in Culture [i.e., husbandry, cultivation]' as in or the voyages of Sir Waiter Ralegh, and several of his books came
Commerce, the Encrease of the People, and Employment for them" fitted out with maps-almost all his novels could usefully have con
(1: 1). This, moreover, in "the most flourishing and opulent Country tained such an aid. Oddly, he had written rather less about the geogra
in the World, so there is a flowing Variety of Materials. "We generally phy of his own country than he had about that of foreign parts.
perceive in this Defoe the social commentator, but the phrasing equally Possibly he found it easier to dilate upon unexplored and undeveloped
shows us Defoe the practicing author. The materials of economic prog tracts of the earth than he did about regions loaded with historical
ress are also the materials for the book. The 'four is a hymn to abun associations, which had already become the property of the breed of
dance, sometimes unrealistically so; it celebrates the richness of the antiquarian topographers who now seemed to be everywhere in
expanding nation, and employs its own rich rhetoric to convey this Britain.
ideological message of Whig advancement. If we cannot fix the precise moment when the 'four germinated in
[n the sections that follow, I shall take up a number of the issues Defoe's mind, we can at least read his own account of the way he
already touched on. First, it is necessary to set the 'four in the context went about equipping himself for the task. This comes in The Great
of Defoe's career, and to relate it to his other literary works of the Law of Subordination Consider'd ... in Ten Familiar Letters, a tract
1720s. Second, we must pay some attention to the political bearings on social issues published in April 1724, about seven weeks prior to
of the work and in particular the shadow of the South Sea Bubble. the first volume of the Tour.
Third, we need to look at the context of travel writing, and to see
the book as part of a developing rhetoric of tourism. Finally, we shall As thus I made myself Master of the History, and ancient State of England,
explore in more detail the design of the book, that is the way in which I resolv'd in the next Place, to make my self Master of its Present State
its outward structure serves to express a particular ideological view also; and to this Purpose, I travell'd in three or four several Tours, over
of the nation. Defoe, I shall argue, sees the island as a kind of text the whole Island, critically observing, and carefully informing myself of
every thing worth observing in all the Towns and Countries [i.e., counties]
that he explores in his various imaginative (indeed, often imaginary)
through which [ pass'd.
"circuits," to produce a literary tour that directly enacts in a literary
I took with me an ancient Gentleman of my Acquaintance, who I found
form the experience of traversing space in the real world.
was thorowly acquainted with almost every Part of England, and who
was to me as a walking Library or a moveable Map of the Countries and
Towns through which we pass'd; and we never failed to enquire of the
I
most proper Persons in every Place where we came, what was to be
seen? what Rarities of Nature, Antiquities, ancient Buildings were in
We do not know when Defoe first conceived the idea of compiling the respective Parts? or, in short, every thing worth the Observation
a full-scale survey of the nation. He had begun to travel widely around of Travellers.
the country in the 1680s, and during the reign of Queen Anne he
had kept detailed accounts of his journeys on behalf of Robert Harley, Defoe adds that he invariably took a map and read up on the history
setting up a team of informants in towns and cities in most parts of of the places he visited. Further, "I had a Book, entitled Britannia,
England. In the Review in 1711, he claimed to have explored "every written by that very learned Antiquary, Mr. Camden, and some other
Nook and Corner" of the land. His lifelong interest in geography and Books too, which treat of the natural History, as well as the Antiqui
exploration (reflected in the contents of his library, sold after his ties of each County. "4 Defoe nowhere makes such a direct admission
death)! had already led him to compose a number of works in this in the 'four itself; we have to deduce his reliance on William Camden
hraneh of study. from his acknowledged references and from many concealed bor
Perhaps the most important work falling squarely into this category rowings, as described in chapter 3 below. Plainly such a tour must
22 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION 23
have postdated 1695, when Britannia came out in a new edition by perfo.rmed a variety of t~ks for Harley, as political agent, spy, propa
Edmund Gibson (the one Defoe used).The "other Books" certainly gandist, and public relatIOns adviser. During the first decade of the
included William Dugdale's works on monasticism and antiquarian century, he traveled widely on Harley's behalf, a fact that is evident
topics, as well as the county histories that Defoe appears to have from his private letters and also sometimes from the pages of his jour
consulted, although we may doubt whether he actually carried around nal, the Review. But Defoe also began to work for Sidney Godolphin,
these ponderous folios on such trips as he actually made. Moreover, the Lord Treasurer, and for some years had to juggle with these two
even these latter sources may sometimes have been drawn on via balls in the air. It was Harley who sent him to Edinburgh in 1706,
Camden, rather than directly. to help prepare the opinion-formers in the Scottish capital for the
In 'fhe Great Law of Subordination, Defoe goes on to characterize forthcoming union of parliaments. During his sojourn in Edinburgh,
his working method. He tells us that with the help of his learned which lasted on and off until 1710, Defoe formed the strong impres
companion, he made a point of observing the language, manners and sIOns of the economic life of Scotland that were to figure in the last
customs of the people he encountered, for, he adds, "I meet with very three sections of his 'four.
few that take Notice of the common People; how they live, what their However, it was his earlier travels on behalf of Harley that leave
general Employment is, and what the particular Employment of them the most obvious mark on the text of his book. For example, he made
is in the several Counties especially." He further informs us that the an extensive tnp to most parts of England (or at least those of political
original journey was accomplished as far back as 1684 to 1688, and or economic Importance, as it was then seen) between July and No
that his companion's father was a great clothier in the West Country: vember 1705. He wrote "an Abstract of my Journey" for Harley, in
a circumstance that is reflected in the heavy coverage of this aspect which he gave a detaIled report on "Pub lick Affaires" in towns
of the nation's trade in the published 'four, forty years later.' Defoe throughout the nation. The following April, he was able to draw up
here suppresses his own, largely unsuccessful, career in trade, most a list of more than sixty agents in key locations up and down the
relevantly his years as a London hose-factor. Paula Backscheider re country, who would distribute copies of a pamphlet to the faithfuI.7
marks that "by the end of 1681 Defoe had made his choice: he would This network had obviously been set up in part during the long trip
become a wholesale hosier."6 Pertinent to this decision was the rapid of 1705. The 'four could not have been written without the informa
growth of the fashion industry in stocking-knitting. Later, he went tion gained on this occasion: for several portions of the text, it was
into a variety of other business speculations; the hosiery venture clearly the author's most recent sight of the region he was to describe."
ended in bankruptcy in 1694. Defoe had plenty of other things on his It may be added that the journey ended along a route from Bury St.
mind-his marriage, his quixotic support for the Monmouth Rebel Edmunds and Sudbury via Colchester and Chelmsford to London an
lion, his ride to Henley to meet the triumphant William III in 1688, exact reversal of the opening sequence of the published 'four. As chap
leading to a growing connection with the royal court in the new reign, ters 1 and 2 will reveal, Defoe did not cease to conduct travels on
and his links with the Royal African Company. The point for our public and private business after 1714, but he never traversed the
immediate purposes is that the young Defoe had a finger in many pies, nation so regularly as he did in the years of his association with Harley
and had many reasons for traveling about the country even if he had and Godolphin.
never met the learned son of the West Country clothier. From early The immediate spur toward writing the 'four may have been literary
I
on, then, Defoe was familiarizing himself with the landscape of the as muc,h as. bIOgraphic. Most galling of all was the success of John 1/
nation, especially its networks of trade and commerce. Macky s guidebook, A Journey through England in Familiar Letters, ="'Y
The next crucial stage for the man who would ultimately become to which we shall return below (pp. 45-46). Here was a Scottish
author of the 'four was his spell as an agent for Robert Harley, at first rapscallion, a mere adventurer (uncom~ortably like Defoe in some of /
Speaker of the House of Commons, and later Secretary of State. De hiS attnbutes), a man who had spent many years on the Continent,
foe's serious correspondence begins at the moment when he started and would eventually die at Rotterdam in 1726-here was such a
to work for Harley around 1703, after the politician had engineered man, with few pretensions to literary skill, producing a standard guide
Defoe's release from Newgate prison. Thereafter, the overwhelming to the land that Defoe knew so well. It must have been unbearable.
majority of his surviving letters were addressed to Harley, right up The 'four is apart from all else an attempt to put Macky in his (lowly)
to the date of the Hanoverian accession. It i.~ well-known that Defoe place, as evidenced by many thrusts in the text at Defoe's adversary,
24 INTRODUCTION INTRODUCTION 25
either by name or under a disguise such as "a late author" or "other ham, which is given in detail both in the 'Tradesman (2: 200-4) and
pretended travelling Writers" (2: 622). a little more briefly in the 'Tour (1: 111-12). The treatment of the
Another possible stimulus to Defoe's pen was the appearance of a wool trade in the West Country is closely similar in the two books
new edition of Edmund Gibson's version of Britannia, which came (Tradesman, 2: ii, 56-59: 'Tour, 1: 280-86). Defoe's taste for disasters
before the public in 1722. Defoe continued to use the 1695 edition, leads him to describe the loss of Admiral Shovel's fleet off the Scilly
which remained in his library at his death9 Less widely applicable, Islands in both places, although the 'four is more detailed. Again, the
but still serviceable, was the new edition of Stow's Survey of London unhappy fall of apparently prosperous tradesmen, as a result of the
which John Strype had issued in 1720; Nathan Bailey produced his South Sea Bubble, is another theme common to the two works. This
Antiquities of London and Westminster in 1722, and the same year material is perhaps more integral to the Tradesman, a sustained expo
saw the appearance of John Stevens' History of Abbeys and Monu sure of the perils of business life ("No Prosperity in Trade is out of
ments. Not long before, in 1718, Stevens had produced a translation the Reach of Disaster," 2: i, 95), but as we shall see, the topic recurs
and abridgment of Dugdale's Monasticon, a work Defoe certainly ominously throughout t.he 'four. In both works Defoe laments the fate
knew. The collaborative survey of the nation called Magna Britannia of the South Sea directors, "sinking still under the Oppression of their
had begun to be published in parts in 1720, avowedly as an update Fortunes, and whose Weight I would be far from endeavouring to
of am den. Thomas Hearne had issued the first published version of make heavier."
Leland's Itinerary only a decade before. This does not exhaust the list To a modern reader, one other parallel may be even more striking.
of antiquarian and topical works that date from the crucial years This is the short trip into East Anglia that the heroine makes toward
I 'ading up to the writing of the 'four; we should also recall more the end of Moll Flanders. This involves Moll's visit to her girlhood
specialized books, such as the series of "surveys" of Welsh cathedrals hometown of Colchester, but in fact her route follows in reverse the
that Browne Willis produced between 1717 and 1721, since Defoe first stretch of the 'four as published two years later. She goes to
certainly employed these to eke out his slender knowledge of such Stourbridge Fair in the hope of rich plunder, but finds nothing more
matters. But the effective cause was most probably Macky, since here than "meer Picking of Pockets": in the 'four Defoe spends much longer
Defoe knew he could outdo his rival, something that was not necessar on the fair, and describes the system of summary justice meted out to
ily true in the case of the antiquarians. The new edition of Britannia wrongdoers, a possible disincentive to Moll (1: 85-86). Then Moll
may be regarded as a secondary trigger for Defoe's imagination to proceeds via Newmarket and Bury to Ipswich and Harwich (cutting
begin firing. He was over sixty; he had run into a profitable vein of out the middle section of the itinerary in the 'four), and thence back
literary form with Crusoe and its fictional successors, and he had a to London through Colchesterll We know from Backscheider's re
lifetime's preparation behind him. searches that Defoe had acquired a large property in Colchester on
Of course, not all the earlier experience was reserved for the 'four. lease in August 1722:12 this would of course provide an authentic
As we have seen, Defoe had been given an early start on the matter reason for embarking on his travels in just this direction on "the 3d
of West Country wool trading; some of this would emerge in A Plan of of April, 1722" (1: 5) and might explain, too, the Colchester setting
the English Commerce (1728). In the latter work, Defoe gives another in Moll Flanders. There are other stray parallels: Moll's passing refer
detailed account of his plan for a new town to be settled in Hampshire, ence to Bath as "a Place of Gallantry enough; Expensive, and full of
which he had originally drafted for Godolphin in 1709, and set forth Snares"13 is amplified in a paragraph of the 'Tour: "The Town is taken
in the Review that year. There is an extensive rerun of the proposal up in Raffling, Gameing, Visiting, and in a Word, all sorts of Gal
in the third letter of the 'Tour (1: 200-6); this differs in several respects lantry and Levity" (2: 433). It is no surprise today to find that the
from the account provided in the Plan of the English Commerce, materials of Defoe's fiction are often identical with the matter of his
though it is not apparent whether Defoe had changed his mind on nonfictional works written at the same stage of his career. It is worth
some points or inadvertently altered the figures. to adding that the author's last novel, A :N:ew Voyage Round the World,
Equally, it is impossible to read 'The Complete English 'Tradesman, was published in November 1724, six months after the first volume
published in 1725-27 as the later sections of the 'four were coming of the 'four and seven months before the second. As the title suggests,
out, without being reminded of the parallels between the two works. it is another book reflecting Defoe's pervasive interest in travel and
ne obvious link is the description of the arrest of James 11 at ravers- exploration. I,
