The Religious and Didactic Writings of Daniel Defoe, ed. by P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens (review)

108 focus on the Union cost Defoe readers in these years. But there is no literary fallingoff , despite Defoe’s removal to Edinburgh, and there is a greater awareness of the diversity of life in Britain. From the insular London journalist, Defoe began to grow into the mythmaker of a modern Britain, a crusader for a mercantile empire. Geoffrey Sill Rutgers University The Religious and Didactic Writings of Daniel Defoe, ed. P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens. Part I: Volumes 1–5. Pp. 1616. Part II: Volumes 6–10. Pp. 1564. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2006. £425; $725. All scholars of the early-eighteenth century should be grateful for the labors of Messrs. Furbank and Owens in offering what are surely the definitive scholarly editions of that most chaotic and varied of all canons, the works of Defoe. This present set covers some favorite Defoe topics, such as trade practice; the inherent strengths of the English economy; the evils of stockjobbing, especially in relation to the South Sea Scheme; religious observance; and the moral expectations demanded by class. However, these volumes cover some unfamiliar territory, too, including a book on the proper role of sex in marriage. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect of this fascinating collection is its general title: ‘‘Religious and Didactic Writings’’ does not necessarily promise gripping reading, nor does it do justice to the intriguing connections that can be made both within this ingenious grouping of seemingly discrete texts and with other works in the Defoe canon. Taken as a whole, Religious and Didactic Writings offers a comprehensive map of Defoe’s ethical universe and an invaluable means of understanding the complex relationship between religion and commerce, class and politics during this period. The set is divided into two halves. Volumes 1–5, the ‘‘religious’’ works, are dominated by The Family Instructor (1715–1718, Volumes 1 and 2, ed. Furbank), which the editor suggests ‘‘could be said to have been, apart from Robinson Crusoe, the most popular of all Defoe’s books.’’ Ostensibly a guidebook for domestic religious observance, the two volumes of The Family Instructor turn out to be something like a protonovel in dialogue form, built on a study of an extended family whose dysfunctions derive from a lack of proper religious observance. While his main purpose is didactic, Defoe also wishes to represent, as Mr. Furbank notes, ‘‘a picture of the upheaval and disruption . . . it may cause when the master of the house decides to set up family worship.’’ It is significant that the chain of events is started by a young child’s asking his father some basic theological questions: while the child easily recognizes his error in neglecting family worship, the older children and adult members of the household take it ill to be forced into such practices, especially when they get in the way of fun. The main theme of The Family Instructor, then, is domestic stability , which Defoe emphasizes must be foundational to any family, and cannot be grafted on as an afterthought. Defoe effectively depicts the turmoil stirred up by questions of family devotions, of parents attempting to instill a sense of the importance of religious observance in their children (and vice versa), with a depiction of the harrowing emotional wounds generated by the conflict that is matched only by 109 the depiction of the painfully prolonged domestic fracturing of the Harlowe family in Richardson’s Clarissa thirty years later. The Family Instructor brilliantly walks the line between catechism and drama, between moral aphorism and psychological realism , and one wonders what sort of a dramatist Defoe would have been if he had considered plays worthy of his talent. Twelve years after writing this initial dysfunctional family, Defoe issued what seemed to be a ‘‘third’’ volume. However, A New Family Instructor (1727, Volume 3, ed. W. R. Owens) focuses on the fear of conversion to Roman Catholicism. A young man, about to embark on the Grand Tour of the Continent, ignores his father’s warnings about Catholics, and returns to England a convert to the Church of Rome. Of the ‘‘religious’’ works in this set, this is the only one that focuses specifically on theology, in particular the necessity, with...