num_pages: 730
description: Britain in the early eighteenth century: an introduction that is both informative and imaginative, reliable and entertaining. To the tradition of travel writing Daniel Defoe brings a lifetime's experience as a businessman, soldier, economic journalist and spy, and his Tour (1724-6) is an invaluable source of social and economic history. But this book is far more than a beautifully written guide to Britain just before the industrial revolution, for Defoe possessed a wild, inventive streak that endows his work with astonishing energy and tension, and the Tour is his deeply imaginative response to a brave new economic world. By employing his skills as a chronicler, a polemicist and a creative writer keenly sensitive to the depredations of time, Defoe more than achieves his aim of rendering 'the present state' of Britain.
language: English
title: A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain
titlecomplete: A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain
genres: British Literature, Nonfiction, Literature, 18th Century, Classics, Travel, History
ratings_count: 107
places: Britain
publisher: Penguin Classics