The Cambridge Edition of the Correspondence of Daniel Defoe

Reviews / Votes

'This authoritative edition gives insights into a range of contemporary events and preoccupations: colonization, religious controversy, communication and transport networks, the publishing trade and relations between authors and printers, the operation of eighteenth-century spymasters and methods of political fact-finding. It will be essential reading for anyone interested in the politics of the period, not least the Union with Scotland and the Hanoverian Succession.' Margarette Lincoln, Times Literary Supplement 'Nicholas Seager's outstanding and painstaking scholarship has created an edition that deserves to be the standard by which we measure for at least the next 50 years.' Kit Kincade, NPEC Reviews '... this edition is a truly splendid literary and literary-critical trove ... Hard to imagine it being outdone or superseded. Plainly, as Defoe might say, final words.' Valentine Cunningham, The Glass 'This volume offers many resources to scholars and students of Defoe. The detailed introduction and extensive notes open these letters to a wider public by adding crucial critical and historical contexts to its exceptional editorial work. This will now be the standard edition of Defoe's letters. Barring major new archival discoveries, it is difficult to imagine needing another for many decades to come.' Christopher Loar, Eighteenth-Century Studies 'Seager's new edition of Defoe's correspondence will be the standard and authoritative account for many years' Markman Ellis, Review of English Studies 'Nicholas Seager's excellent, carefully edited edition ... reestablishes the texts of the correspondence from original manuscripts in cases where they are available and adds an extensive editorial apparatus ... Its lengthy introductory essay stands out as a model of its kind' Christopher Loar, Eighteenth-Century Fiction 'Nicholas Seager has produced a stunningly impressive edition of Defoe's correspondence from 1703 to 1730 ... The letters are lively, pugnacious, detailed, typographically (scribally) dramatic, and intrinsically compelling; in Nicholas Seager they have an eminently worthy editor' Cynthia Wall, Bunyan Studies