Daniel Defoe, Journalist

Extract

Daniel Defoe, in his “Tour Thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain,” says of the town of Maiden in 1761,

“Here is a good public Library for the Use of the Minister and the Clergy of the Hundreds adjoining to the sea; and any Gentleman may borrow a Book, upon depositing the Value of it.”

It would give him a great deal of satisfaction and some surprise if he could see the Baker Library, where thousands of books of commercial interest may be consulted freely by every citizen of Boston. One might suspect that it would give him even greater satisfaction and surprise him less to see his own commercial pamphlets in a place of honor in the Librarian's Room. Perhaps the most versatile of English writers, he apparently had economic matters nearest his heart; for as he traveled through England, though he noted everything of interest in a given place, he dwelt lovingly and lingeringly on its commerce or fishing, manufactures or farming, the rent of its land, and the reasons for its poverty or prosperity.