Neo Classical / Augustan Fiction / Novel

Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)

1. Irish author, clergyman, satirist.
2. born in Dublin in 1667.
3. Studied in Kikenny Grammar School and at Trinity College in Dublin, left the
   college in disgrace.
4. In 1689, became Secretary to Sir William Temple, a diplomat and man of letters.
5. He met Esther Johnson, who became his lifelong companion and appeared as ‘Stella’ in his poetry.
6. Swift received M.A degree from Oxford University. Doctor of Divinity from Trinity College, dublin, in 1701.
7. He could become a bishop but Queen Anne had objection and doubt on his A Tale of a Tub and his religious  beliaefs. So he could only be appointed as Dean of St Patrick’s Dublin in 1713
8. In 1713 he joined  with Alexander Pope and others to form the Scriblerus Literary Club. It was the time when he met Esther ‘Vanessa’ who inspired his poem Cadenus and Vanessa (1713). In 1728, his ‘Stella’, Esther Johnson died. Her death moved Swift to write The Death of Mrs Johnson.
9. Works:
   1. Pamphlet:
      1. A Discourse on the Contests
      2. Dissentions in Athens and Rome
      3. The Grand Question Debated
   2. A Modest Proposal
   3. A Tale of A Tub (1704)
   4. The battle of Books (1704)
   5. Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731)

1. Born in London
2. Studied at Morton’s Academy, a school for Dissenters at Newington Green, preparing to become a  Presbyterian Minister, changed mind later and became a hosiery merchant instead.
3. Went bankrupt in 1692 and by 1703 and decided to leave the business.
4. In 1703 Robert Harley, Earl of Oxford, a Tory government official, employed Defoe as a spy.
5. With the support of the government Defoe started the newspaper ‘The Review’ published between 1704 and 1713, appeared 3 times a week.
6. Later years he turned to write fictions.
7. In 1731, died due to a stroke and was buried in Bunhill field, a cemetry for Dissenters.
8. an English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy.
9. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson.
10. Defoe wrote many political tracts, was often in trouble with the authorities, and spent a period in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted him.
11. As many as 545 titles have been ascribed to Defoe, ranging from satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets, and volumes.
12. Works:

1. 1. An Essay Upon Projects (1697) was the first volume published by Daniel Defoe. It begins with a portrait of his time as a “Projecting Age” and subsequently illustrates plans for the economic and social improvement of England, including an early proposal for a national insurance scheme.
   2. The Shortest Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church is a pamphlet written by Daniel Defoe, first published anonymously in 1702. Defoe was prompted to write the pamphlet by the increased hostility towards Dissenters in the wake of the accession of Queen Anne to the throne.
   3. The True Born Englishman (1701)
      1. satirical poem attacked English xenophobia, made him famous.
      2. “Wherever God erects a house of prayer / the Devil always builds a chapel there; / And ‘t will be found, upon examination, / the latter has the largest congregation.” – Defoe’s The True-Born Englishman, 1701
   4.   The Shortest Way with Dissenters (1702)
      1. Ironic pamphlet demanded the total supression of dissent and got him imprisoned.
      2. Not all of Defoe’s pamphlet writing was political. One pamphlet was originally published anonymously, entitled A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal the Next Day after her Death to One Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury the 8th of September, 1705. It deals with the interaction between the spiritual realm and the physical realm and was most likely written in support of Charles Drelincourt’s The Christian Defence against the Fears of Death (1651). It describes Mrs. Bargrave’s encounter with her old friend Mrs. Veal after she had died. It is clear from this piece and other writings that the political portion of Defoe’s life was by no means his only focus.
      3. he set up his periodical A Review of the Affairs of France, which supported the Harley Ministry, chronicling the events of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1714). The Review ran three times a week without interruption until 1713.
      4. Defoe’s first notable publication was An Essay Upon Projects, a series of proposals for social and economic improvement, published in 1697. From 1697 to 1698, he defended the right of King William III to a standing army during disarmament, after the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) had ended the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697). His most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1701), defended William against xenophobic attacks from his political enemies in England, and English anti-immigration sentiments more generally. In 1701, Defoe presented the Legion’s Memorial to Robert Harley, then Speaker of the House of Commons—and his subsequent employer—while flanked by a guard of sixteen gentlemen of quality. It demanded the release of the Kentish petitioners, who had asked Parliament to support the king in an imminent war against France.
      5. The death of William III in 1702 once again created a political upheaval, as the king was replaced by Queen Anne who immediately began her offensive against Nonconformists. Defoe was a natural target, and his pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31 July 1703, principally on account of his December 1702 pamphlet entitled The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church, purporting to argue for their extermination. In it, he ruthlessly satirised both the high church Tories and those Dissenters who hypocritically practised so-called “occasional conformity”, such as his Stoke Newington neighbour Sir Thomas Abney. It was published anonymously, but the true authorship was quickly discovered and Defoe was arrested. He was charged with seditious libel and found guilty in a trial at the Old Bailey in front of the notoriously sadistic judge Salathiel Lovell.

1. 1. The Consolidator, or Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon: Translated from the Lunar Language (1705)
   2. Robinson Crusoe (1719) – originally published in two volumes:
      1. The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner: Who Lived Eight and Twenty Years […] The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: Being the Second and Last Part of His Life […]
   3. Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his Vision of the Angelick World (1720)
   4. Captain Singleton (1720)
   5. Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720)
   6. A Journal of the Plague Year (1722)
   7. Colonel Jack (1722)
   8. Moll Flanders (1722)
   9. Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724)

1. 1. An Essay Upon Projects (1697) – subsections of the text include: “The History of Projects,” “Of Projectors,” “Of Banks,” “Of the Highways,” “Of Assurances,” “Of Friendly Societies,” “The Proposal is for a Pension Office,” “Of Wagering,” “Of Fools,” “A Charity-Lottery,” “Of Bankrupts,” “Of Academies” (including a section proposing an academy for women), “Of a Court Merchant,” and “Of Seamen.”
   2. The Storm (1704) – describes the worst storm ever to hit Britain in recorded times. Includes eyewitness accounts.
   3. Atlantis Major (1711)
   4. The Family Instructor (1715)
   5. Memoirs of the Church of Scotland (1717)
   6. The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard (1724) – describing Sheppard’s life of crime and concluding with the miraculous escapes from prison for which he had become a public sensation.
   7. A Narrative of All The Robberies, Escapes, &c. of John Sheppard (1724) – written by or taken from Sheppard himself in the condemned cell before he was hanged for theft, apparently by way of conclusion to the Defoe work. According to the Introduction to Volume 16 of the works of Defoe published by J M Dent in 1895, Sheppard handed the manuscript to the publisher Applebee from the prisoners’ cart as he was taken away to be hanged. It included a correction of a factual detail and an explanation of how his escapes from prison were achieved.
   8. A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain, divided into circuits or journies (1724–1727)
   9. A New Voyage Round the World (1724)
   10. The Political History of the Devil (1726)
   11. The Complete English Tradesman (1726)
   12. A treatise concerning the use and abuse of the marriage bed… (1727)
   13. A Plan of the English Commerce (1728) – describes how the English woolen textile industrial base was developed by protectionist policies by Tudor monarchs, especially by Henry VII of England and Elizabeth I, including such policies as high tariffs on the importation of finished woolen goods, high taxes on raw wool leaving England, bringing in artisans skilled in wool textile manufacturing from the Low Countries, selective government-granted monopoly rights, and government-sponsored industrial espionage.

1. 1. The Poor Man’s Plea (1698)
   2. The History of the Kentish Petition (1701)
   3. The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702)
   4. The Great Law of Subordination Consider’d (1704)
   5. Giving Alms No Charity, and Employing the Poor (1704)
   6. The Apparition of Mrs. Veal (1706)
   7. An Appeal to Honour and Justice, Tho’ it be of his Worst Enemies, by Daniel Defoe, Being a True Account of His Conduct in Publick Affairs (1715)
   8. A Vindication of the Press: Or, An Essay on the Usefulness of Writing, on Criticism, and the Qualification of Authors (1718)
   9. Every-body’s Business, Is No-body’s Business (1725)
   10. The Protestant Monastery (1726)
   11. Parochial Tyranny (1727)
   12. Augusta Triumphans (1728)
   13. Second Thoughts are Best (1729)
   14. An Essay Upon Literature (1726)
   15. Mere Nature Delineated (1726)
   16. Conjugal Lewdness (1727) – Anti-Contraception Essay
   18. The True-Born Englishman: A Satyr (1701)
   19. Hymn to the Pillory (1703)
   20. An Essay on the Late Storm (1704)
   21. Some contested works attributed to Defoe
   22. A Friendly Epistle by way of reproof from one of the people called Quakers, to T. B., a dealer in many words (1715).
   23. The King of Pirates (1719) – purporting to be an account of the pirate Henry Avery.
   24. The Pirate Gow (1725) – an account of John Gow.
   25. A General History of the Pyrates (1724, 1725, 1726, 1828) – published in two volumes by Charles Rivington, who had a shop near St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. Published under the name of Captain Charles Johnson, it sold in many editions.
   26. Captain Carleton’s Memoirs of an English Officer (1728).
   27. The life and adventures of Mrs. Christian Davies, commonly call’d Mother Ross (1740) – published anonymously; printed and sold by R. Montagu in London; and attributed to Defoe but more recently not accepted.

Samuel Richardson (1689-1761)

1. Was born in poverty in Derbysire, England
2. His career began as an apprentice to a printer.
3. He started business as a bookseller and publisher
4. Started writing in 1730s
5. Works:
   1. The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum; or Young Man’s Pocket Companion
      1. His first known work published in 1733 addressed to his apprentices
   2. A Seasonable Examination (1735)
      1. A pamphlet supporting a parliamentary bill to regulate the London Theatre
   3. Letters:
      1. Familiar Letters on Important Occasions
         1. He was comissioned to write a collection of letters that might serve as models for ‘country readers’.
         2. During this work Richardson decided to put together a series of letters that would narrate the tribulations of a young servant girl in a country house. He explained this idea into a novel “Pamela, or, Virtue Rewarded”
   4. Pamela or Virtue Rewarded
   5. Pamela in hier Exalted Condition (1741)
   6. Clarissa (1748)
   7. Sir Charles Grandison (1753)

Laurence Sterne (1713 – 1768)

1. Anglo-Irish novelist
2. Born in Clonmel, Country Tipperary, Ireland.
3. Studied in Jesus College, Cambridge.
4. In 1738 he became the Vicar at Sutton-in-the-Forest, Near York.
5. Sterne fell in love with Mrs Eliza Draper, the wife of
6. Works:
   1. In 1747, Sterne published a sermon preached in York titled The case of Elijah.
   2. 1750, The Abuses of Conscience
   3. Tristram Shandy
      1. Every word of the novel was ‘Written under the greatest heaviness of heart.’
      2. The first two volumes of the novel were published by Sterne himself at his own expense.
      3. Between 1759 and 1768, Sterne wrote five instalments of Tristram, several volumes of Sermons of Mr Yorick and at the end of the period, A Sentimental Journey.

Henry Fielding (1707-1754)

1. English novelist and playwright born in Sharpham park, England in 1707.
2. Educated in Eton Cottage and the University of Leiden.Returning to England he started writing theatrical comedies.
3. Became manager of the Little Theatre in the Haymarket in 1736.
4. Passing of the Theatrical Licensing Act in 1737, put an end to his career of playwright.
5. He became editor of The Champion.
6. He was prompted to turn to fiction after reading Richardson’s Pamela.
7. He not only wrote Shamela, a parody of the novel, but followed it up with Joseph Andrew in 1742.
8. Fielding had married Charlotte Craddock in 1734 on whom he modeled the heroines of bothTom Jones and Amelia.
9. Works:
   1. The Author’s Farce
   2. Rape upon Rape
   3. Miscellanies 1743
      1. The Life and Death of Mr Jonathan Wild, the Great (based on the notorious criminal)
   4. the History of Tom Jones
   5. A Foundling
   6. The Journey of a Voyage to Lisbon
   7. Joseph Andrews

Tobias Smollett (1721 – 1771)

1. Scottish novelist and poet
2. Educated in Drumbarton Grammar School and at the University of Glasgow.
3. He served an apprenticeship to surgeons: William Stirling and John Gordon.
4. Returning to London, he set up his won work as a surgeon and occasionally  wrote satires.
5. Eight months later in 1748, he came out with his first novel: Roderick Random.
6. Roderick Random established Smollett as a literary figure but hestill continued his career as a surgeon.
7. Peregrine Pickle (1751)
   1. Satirizes English literary and social groups
8. the Adventures of Ferdinand  Count Fathom 91753)
   1. Satirizes English Gothic fiction and explores Hobbesian determinism and The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, an epistolary novel that charts the adventures of a family group travelling through Britain.
9. In 1755, Smollet translated Don Quixote, the source for The Life and Adventures of Sir Launcelote de Greaves (1760-61). satirised his British Magazine.
10. He also wrote Travels through France and Italy, a satire on tourists.
11. The Expedition of Humphry Clinker.
12. Works:
    1. Roderick Random (1748)
       1. the work was a parody based on two satirical picaresque work, smollett had translated into English: Carvantes’s Don Quixote (1605-1615) and Alain Rene Lesage’s Gil Blas (1715-1747).

Oliver Goldsmith (1730 – 1774)

1. Irish Novelist, playwright, poet.
2. Father was a country Vicar, who died in the early age.
3. Earned B.A Degree in 1749 at Trinity College, Dublin.
4. After involving in different professions finally settled for medicines in 1752.
5. Died suffering in Kidey disease.
6. Translated and wrote many articles
7. His career among the intellectual elite is generally regarded to begin with 1759 publication of: Enquiry into Present State of Polite Learning in Europe. Which earned him the admiration of Samuel Johnson. Who along with Godsmith and other was a founding member of The Club.
8. Through Johnson’s patronage Goldsmith began to publish his first master works including the novel: the Vicar of Wakefield
9. Works:
   1. Enquiry into Present State of Polite Learning in Europe (1759)
   2. The Citizens of the World 1762
   3. The Traveller (1764)
   4. An Elegy on the Death of a Mad Dog (1766)
   5. The Vicar of Wakefield (1766)
   6. The Good Natur’d Man (1768)
   7. The Deserted Village (1770)
   8. She Stoops to Conquer (1773)

Dr Samuel Johnson

1. Work:
   1. The History of Rasselas