Original Lonelyhearts

If Daniel Defoe were alive today he would probably be writing for the Hearst papers. His Robinson Crusoe was the greatest and most enjoyable journalistic hoax in history. His accounts of London fires, plagues, streetwalkers, ghosts and insect pests would be welcome copy for any Sunday supplement. When Reporter Defoe went to Scotland in 1706 to spy out political sentiment for his secret master, Secretary of State Robert Harley, he improved his time by picking up believe-it-or-not tales of a bridge over a dry river (between Glasgow and Sterling), of fishermen who killed porpoises with a sock on the nose.

Last week the Columbia University Press completed a monumental ten-year job--reprinting in 22 facsimile volumes (price $88) a complete file of Defoe's Review, a weekly, biweekly and triweekly newspaper of opinion which he wrote singlehanded between 1704 and 1713. Before becoming a newspaperman at 45, Defoe had been a butcher, hosiery factor, wine importer, government lottery agent, tile manufacturer, South Sea speculator, bankrupt and convict. In 1703 he spent three days in the stocks (see cut) for publishing an annoying political pamphlet. Between jail terms he plumped mightily for freedom of the press, took secret cash handouts from ministers of all parties, acted as informer to governments and Kings.

One rival editor called him a "powdered ape" who knocked down a young girl and stole her hair for his wig. Another libelously linked him with the "Mohawks," a gang of London roughnecks who rolled stray females in barrels and cut off the noses of wandering drunks. Actually he seems to have been an obscure, spry, spare little man with a "brown complexion and dark brown-coloured hair ... a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes and a large mole near his mouth."

His Review, which contemporaries considered a far greater achievement than Robinson Crusoe, was largely filled with dull political and economic arguments, but it did introduce the first gossip column, the first society news and first advice to the lovelorn in English-language journalism. Like Dorothy Dix, Editor Defoe spun many a moral sermon in order to get a confessional letter into print. Sample from his "Advice from the Scandal Club" column: "Gentlemen ... I desire your advice in the following Case. I am something in Years, yet have a great Affection for my Neighbour's Wife, and she no less for me; her Husband is sensible of it, but seems indifferent, so that nothing but a few Scruples of Conscience bars my way to Enjoyment; which if you can remove, it shall be acknowledg'd by, Gentlemen, Your Humble Servant. . . .'' Defoe's advice: Stay home and mind your scruples.

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