Daniel Defoe was born towards the summer of 1660 s the son of Alice and James Foe. His father was a City tradesman and member of the Butchers’ Company. James Foe’s stubborn Puritanism – the Foes were Dissenteres, Protestants who did not belong to the Anglican Church – come occasionally comes through Defoe’s writing. In the early 1680s Defoe was a commission merchant in Cornhill but went bankrupt in 1691. In 1684 he married Mary Tuffley; they had two ...