MEMOIRS OF A CAVALIER

or

A Military Journal of the Wars in Germany, and the Wars in England.
From the Year 1632 to the Year 1648.

By Daniel Defoe

Edited with Introduction and Notes by Elizabeth O'Neill

1922




INTRODUCTION.


Daniel Defoe is, perhaps, best known to us as the author of _Robinson
Crusoe_, a book which has been the delight of generations of boys and
girls ever since the beginning of the eighteenth century. For it was
then that Defoe lived and wrote, being one of the new school of prose
writers which grew up at that time and which gave England new forms
of literature almost unknown to an earlier age. Defoe was a vigorous
pamphleteer, writing first on the Whig side and later for the Tories
in the reigns of William III and Anne. He did much to foster the
growth of the newspaper, a form of literature which henceforth became
popular. He also did much towards the development of the modern novel,
though he did not write novels in our sense of the word. His books