One of the significant founders of the English novel and a pioneer of economic journalism, Daniel Defoe was born in London, England, sometime around the year 1659-60, the exact date being uncertain. An Essay upon Projects (1697) was Defoe’s first publication. Defoe’s first work of fiction was Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1719 when he was sixty, it was considered the first English novel. It established realistic fiction as a literary genre. Some of Defoe’s works published in rapid succession include Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720); Captain Singleton (1720), Moll Flanders (1722); Colonel Jacque (1722); A Journal of the Plague Year (1722); and Roxana (1724). Defoe breathed his last on April 24, 1731.