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Daniel Defoe Podcasts

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Where rhyme gets its reason! In a historical survey of English literature, I take a personal and philosophical approach to the major texts of the tradition in order to not only situate the poems, prose, and plays in their own contexts, but also to show their relevance to our own. This show is for the general listener: as a teacher of high school literature and philosophy, I am less than a scholar but more than a buff. I hope to edify and entertain!
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Robinson Crusoe

CandlelightStories.com

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Here is 'Robinson Crusoe' by Daniel Defoe in its entirety as a weekly podcast. Widely regarded as marking the start of the english novel, this book is a grand and moving adventure. If your impression of this story comes from a movie, perhaps you should listen. The book is much better. For more audio from CandlelightStories.com, try the Sound Story Club at our web site. You can also listen to a pirate novel at the 'Pirate Jack' podcast.
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Telling stories of authors, storytellers, and people and companies important to publishing. From historically important authors to modern best sellers, from editors and agents to publishers and the companies that make up book publishing, join us for the stories that shed light on the business of books.
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The History of the Plague in London is a historical novel offering an account of the dismal events caused by the Great Plague, which mercilessly struck the city of London in 1665. First published in 1722, the novel illustrates the social disorder triggered by the outbreak, while focusing on human suffering and the mere devastation occupying London at the time. Defoe opens his book with the introduction of his fictional character H.F., a middle-class man who decides to wait out the destructio ...
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Send us a text On this trip, we're looking at the conventional candidate for the first modern novel in English. Defoe's story of a resourceful man shipwrecked on a desert island is so much more than a ripping yarn: it speaks to the rise of a literary vernacular language, the values of an increasing bourgeois and expansionist society, and of spiritu…
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Send us a text For you today, Trick or Treaters, a discussion of what some critics assert is the first modern ghost story in English: Daniel Defoe's 1705 "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal." The text: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/36587/36587-h/36587-h.htm Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, o…
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Send us a text Well, I probably should have done this episode earlier, since it might have been good for it to precede our other discussions of Resto comedy. But I made a last minute decision and included a second play, which kind of threw off the old chronology. But it's good all the same! The Man of Mode by George Etherege: https://coldreads.word…
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Send us a text For our second episode on John Dryden, we'll talk about two of his plays which marked an innovation in the tragi-comic romance: Marriage a la Mode and Amphitryon. We'll discuss the "split-plot" play, the exorcising of Restoration political anxieties, and why we sometimes mock that which we cherish. Additional sound clip from Monty Py…
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Send us a text Once hailed as the towering literary figure of the Restoration age, John Dryden is little known now by the general reader. Let's take care of that with a close look at his most enduring works, the poetical satires Mac Flecknoe and Absalom and Achitophel. Mac Flecknoe text: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44181/mac-flecknoe Abs…
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Send us a text Since they wrote in 17th century Massachusetts, poets Anne Bradstreet and Edward Taylor are often overlooked in surveys of English literature. Today, though, we'll bring them back into the fold as we look at how their puritanical religious beliefs engaged with the pastoral and metaphysical poetic traditions that celebrated "Arcadia,"…
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Robinson Crusoe was an instant bestseller in 1719, yet Daniel Defoe never became rich from it. Why not? In this episode, we look at how authors made (and failed to make) money in the early 18th century, and how printers like William Taylor profited far more than the writers themselves. Books Discussed Robinson Crusoe (1719) — Daniel Defoe The Farth…
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Piatkus Books started as a small U.K. publisher focused on supplying books to libraries. Judy Piatkus founded her second publishing company in 1978, while still in her 20s. This episode tells the story of the company's founding and early days, up through its growth into fiction, international sales, and £10M in revenue before selling in 2007, just …
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The author of Robinson Crusoe, started his professional life as the 1700s equivalent of a blogger and a hot-take merchant. Daniel Defoe’s satirical pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters landed him in the pillory. Listen to learn about the early career of the author of one of the great early English novels, why Queen Anne’s government treate…
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Send us a text Charles II reopened the theatres in 1660 and inaugurated the second golden age of the English stage. Today's show looks at one of the bawdiest plays to come from the period, a "comedy of manners" whose clever use of language points to the reality of style over substance. The Country Wife text: https://theater.lafayette.edu/wp-content…
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This episode tells the story of how Ingram transformed from a regional schoolbook depository into the go‑to wholesaler for U.S. trade books. Learn about how Harry Hoffman and Ingram expanded the company's reach in books and prepared the way for Amazon and its business model. Books Discussed The Family Business: How Ingram Transformed the World of B…
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Learn about how a family owned oil company came to run one of the most important companies within book publishing. Here the story of the start of Ingram Books. People Discussed 03:32 | Laura Ingalls Wilder – Author of the Little House series; covered in Episodes 3 & 4 03:54 | Orrin Henry Ingram – Lumber-baron patriarch (1850s-1890s) 04:24 | Orin “H…
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James Patterson has built a publishing juggernaut. His publishing success all started with Little, Brown publishing Along Came a Spider in February 1993. In this episode we look at how he marketed his breakout hit. From cover design to targeted TV advertising, Patterson brought his expertise as CEO of a major advertising firm to book publishing. Li…
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Send us a text Today marks the anniversary of one of the most mythologized battles in Anglo-Irish history: the Battle of the Boyne. In July of 1690, King William III soundly defeated James II and secured Ireland's Protestant supremacy while sowing the seeds for centuries of violent conflict. The battle also marks the debut of one of Ireland's most …
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It took James Patterson seven attempts before he found the right formula for a successful thriller. In this episode, we focus on Patterson break out commercial success, Along Came a Spider and answer the question of how he changed his writing, to find commercial success in his seventh book. Bibliography: Along Came a Spider (1993) by James Patterso…
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Send us a text As Americans celebrate Independence Day, I'm here once again to remind them of the debt American independence owes to English literature and history. Stick in the mud. Today, we look at a genuinely weird poem that allegorizes the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (an event that would lay the groundwork for the American Revolution nearly a …
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Michael Crichton had his first hit book in 1969 when he was in his 20s. But 20-years later he was in a rut. Jurassic Park got him out of is rut, and his friend Michael Ovitz helped turn it into a Steven Spielberg directed Hollywood blockbuster. Hear the story of the creation of Jurassic Park, both the book and the movie that made Crichton one of th…
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Send us a text In today's chinwag, we'll explore a candidate for the first novel in English by the first professional female writer in English: Oroonoko by Aphra Behn (1688). It's the story of an African prince and his beloved, who are betrayed into slavery and do not live happily ever after. The novel seems a modest heroic romance, but I think Ms.…
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Robert Gottlieb started in publishing in 1955. Just 10 years later he became editor-in-chief at publishing house Simon & Schuster. Following that, he went to Alfred A. Knopf, where he was again editor-in-chief. Over the course of his more than 60 year career, he became the most important editor in publishing, and edited hundreds of books. By his es…
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Overview Follow Laura Ingalls Wilder’s journey from rejected memoir to successful first novel. To get there she needed the unsung help of editor Marion Fiery and then Virginia Kirkus. In this Part 2, finish the story of how Wilder wrote and got the first of the Little House books published. What You’ll Hear | Time | Topic | 00:00 | Cold‑open & Intr…
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Episode Overview At age 63, Laura Ingalls Wilder sat down with a No. 2 pencil and wrote a memoir she called Pioneer Girl. Following the stock market crash of 1929, it was her effort to preserve her stories and provide for her family. This episode tells the first part of the story of how, with the help of her daughter, she turned that rejected memoi…
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Episode Overview The start of the partnership between Dr. Seuss and publisher Random House. CEO Bennett Cerf wooed little known children’s author Theodor “Ted” Geisel. Beginning with a lunch at the 21 Club in NYC, Cerf showed Ted unwavering publisher support despite early flops like The Seven Lady Godivas. Cerf’s long bet on Geisel illustrates the …
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Send us a text Today we look at the diary, a form of writing that became extraordinarily popular over the course of the 1600s. We'll especially look at famous diarists such as John Evelyn and Samuel Pepys, who not only chronicle details of their personal lives, but also give first hand accounts of the dramatic history of the period: the Restoration…
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Judith Jones, long-time editor for Alfred A. Knopf, persuaded the publisher to take a chance on a French cookbook that no one knew they wanted. That book and TV made Julia Child a surprising star. Learn about three themes that helped make Mastering the Art of French Cooking a publishing success: counter positioning, fascination with the Kennedys, a…
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Send us a text I'm back before you even had a chance to miss me! Today, a bit of a genealogy of a now little read mock epic -- Samuel Butler's Hudibras -- which takes Chaucer and Spenser and Jonson and Cervantes, mixes them all up into a gloopy goo, and sprays it all over lemon-sucking Puritans! Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the…
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Send us a text Put on your comfortable shoes and grab your walking stick because today we're embarking on the most famous allegory in the English language: John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress from 1678. We'll cross plains, endure temptations, descend valleys, fight monsters, and ford rivers in our quest for the Celestial City! Along the way, we'll…
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Send us a text The political upheavals of 17th century England demanded new answers for old political questions: what is the purpose of government, how is power legitimated, and who may wield it? Philosophers Thomas Hobbes and John Locke reasoned from the same premises, but arrived at rather different conclusions. Balancing those conclusions is the…
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Send us a text We often think of science fiction as a particularly modern genre of storytelling, born of the science and technology of the electronic and digital age. But speculative fiction goes back centuries, back to the beginning of what we now call the Scientific Revolution of the 1600s. On today's show, we look at two of the foundational book…
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Send us a text Which is better: the life of ascetic contemplation or one of passionate sensuality? Let's see what the last great poet of the Stuart era, Andrew Marvell, has to say about that. Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, or wherever you listen. Thank you! Email: classicenglishlitera…
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Send us a text Here's another episode in our foundling series "Out of Time." Today, I correct an oversight from our 15th century literature discussions and survey the very earliest surviving tales of the outlaw and all-around-swell-guy Robin Hood! Let's jump in the Wayback Machine! Here's a link to the Robin Hood Project at the University of Roches…
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Send us a text We return to Milton's magnificent octopus today with an eye toward evaluating the epic's success according to its own mission statement: "to justify the ways of God to men." How does Milton approach the great theological problems of evil and suffering, divine foreknowledge, and free will? Support the show Please like, subscribe, and …
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Send us a text Sexy Satan, what have you done? You made a fool of every one! On this episode we tackle the rather thorny question of Paradise Lost's charismatic protagonist (?) or antagonist (?) or antihero (?): the hottest guy in Hell. Why does an epic on the cosmic history of Christianity, written by a radical Puritan, present us with so commandi…
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Send us a text In 1638, John Milton -- whom many see as perhaps the (second) greatest poet in English -- produced what many think to be his first major poem: the pastoral elegy "Lycidas," written to memorialize the tragic death of a college classmate. Ah! But it's so much more than that! Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast…
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Send us a text The original "War on Christmas"! This year's stocking stuffer looks at England's Christmas ban from 1647 to 1660 and at a rather quirky pamphlet entitled "The Examination and Trial of Old Father Christmas." Season's greetings, Litterbugs! Support the show Please like, subscribe, and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube Music, …
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Send us a text Today we have a slightly different kind of show -- literary analysis takes a bit of a back seat to historical context. We'll look at the turbulent period between 1625 and 1660, when England went to war with itself over the roles of the monarchy and of Parliament. We'll look at primary historical documents as well as a little poetry t…
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