狄福(1660～1731年)
Defoe, Daniel，原名Daniel Foe。
英国小说家、新闻工作者和小册子写作者。为受过良好教育的伦敦商人，後来成为观察敏锐的经济理论家，并开始针对公共事务撰写滔滔雄辩、机智和大胆的小册子。1703年因发表一首讽刺诗而被关进监狱，同时生意也垮了。此後一边写作，一边担任政府的秘密情报员周游各地。1704～1713年他一手包办《评论》（Review）周报的稿件，这是一份严肃、有影响力的报纸，对後来定期刊物的文章影响很大，如《旁观者》（The Spectator）。在游历了几次苏格兰之後，出版了《不列颠全岛纪游》（Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 1724～1726，3卷）。晚年转写小说。长篇小说《鲁滨逊漂流记》（Robinson Crusoe, 1719）为他取得永垂不朽的名声，这是根据一些航海家和流亡者的经历来写的。他也以生动描写歹徒为题材的《摩尔.法兰德斯》（Moll Flanders, 1922）而闻名；还着有非小说《大疫年日记》（Journal of the Plague Year, 1722），描述1664～1665年发生的伦敦大瘟疫（Great Plague）；以及《罗珊娜 》（Roxana, 1724），是现代小说的原型。
English version：
1660～1731年
Defoe, Daniel
British novelist, pamphleteer, and journalist. A well-educated London merchant, he became an acute economic theorist and began to write eloquent, witty, often audacious tracts on public affairs. A satire he published resulted in his being imprisoned in 1703, and his business collapsed. He traveled as a government secret agent while continuing to write prolifically. In 1704-13 he wrote practically single-handedly the periodical Review, a serious and forceful paper that influenced later essay periodicals such as The Spectator. His Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (3 vols., 1724-26) followed several trips to Scotland. Late in life he turned to fiction. He achieved literary immortality with the novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), which drew partly on memoirs of voyagers and castaways. He is also remembered for the vivid, picaresque Moll Flanders (1722); the nonfictional Journal of the Plague Year (1722), on the Great Plague in London in 1664-65; and Roxana (1724), a prototype of the modern novel.