Defoe's Role in the Weekly Journal: Gesture and Rhetoric, Archive and Canon, and the Uses of Literary History in Attribution.

DEFOE, Daniel, ca. 1661-1731; FURBANK, P. N. (Philip Nicholas), 1920-2014; OWENS, W. R.; MIST, Nathaniel; LEE, William

This essay is intended to restore Defoe's contributions to a single journal not included in the list of his works. But in the process, it will clarify some of the problems created by P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens's apparent sole reliance upon external evidence in their Critical Bibliography of Daniel Defoe and explain at least one of the reasons why some of his major works of fiction were mostly ignored until the beginning of the twentieth century. Indeed, if we believe that Defoe was a writer of little significance in his time and paltry artistic interest in ours, it may seem as if this is an exercise in historical and literary trivia. This article, however, treats a body of journalism that was ascribed to Defoe by William Lee in 1869, a body of journalism that involved Defoe's contributions to the Weekly Journal published by Nathaniel Mist from 1715-28. In so doing, it will consider some more general aspects of the Defoe canon to explain why these essays were important in 1869 and why they remain significant for us today, as well some of the reasons why a number of the essays appear likely to be by Defoe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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