Defoe's "Essay on Projects" was the first volume he published, and
no great writer ever published a first book more characteristic in
expression of his tone of thought. It is practical in the highest
degree, while running over with fresh speculation that seeks
everywhere the well-being of society by growth of material and moral
power. There is a wonderful fertility of mind, and almost whimsical
precision of detail, with good sense and good humour to form the
groundwork of a happy English style. Defoe in this book ran again
and again into sound suggestions that first came to be realised long
after he was dead. Upon one subject, indeed, the education of
women, we have only just now caught him up. Defoe wrote the book in
1692 or 1693, when his age was a year or two over thirty, and he
published it in 1697.

Defoe was the son of James Foe, of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, whose
family had owned grazing land in the country, and who himself throve
as a meat salesman in London. James Foe went to Cripplegate Church,
where the minister was Dr. Annesley. But in 1662, a year after the
birth of Daniel Foe, Dr. Annesley was one of the three thousand
clergymen who were driven out of their benefices by the Act of
Uniformity. James Foe was then one of the congregation that
followed him into exile, and looked up to him as spiritual guide
when he was able to open a meeting-house in Little St. Helen's.
Thus Daniel Foe, not yet De Foe, was trained under the influence of
Dr. Annesley, and by his advice sent to the Academy at Newington
Green, where Charles Morton, a good Oxford scholar, trained young
men for the pulpits of the Nonconformists. In later days, when