THE BI-SEXUALITY OF DANIEL DEFOE THE BI-SEXUALITY OF DANIEL DEFOE A Psychoanalytic Survey of the Man and His Works Leo Abse First published in 2006 by H. Karnac (Books) Ltd. 6 Pembroke Buildings, London NW10 6RE Copyright @ 2006 by Leo Abse The rights of Leo Abse to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with §§ 77 and 78 of the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: Publisher to supply Edited, designed, and typeset by RefineCatch Ltd, Bungay, Suffolk Printed in the United Kingdom by Publisher to supply www.karnacbooks.com CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii CHAPTER ONE The genius of Daniel Defoe 1 CHAPTER TWO The Historical Collections 10 CHAPTER THREE The negative Oedipus complex 14 CHAPTER FOUR The thrills of risk-taking 39 CHAPTER FIVE Cannibalism 50 CHAPTER SIX The plague: defying Thanatos 58 v vi CONTENTS CHAPTER SEVEN The storm 77 CHAPTER EIGHT The voyeur 85 CHAPTER NINE The spy 105 CHAPTER TEN Coprophilia and creativity 142 CHAPTER ELEVEN Captain Singleton: the ablation of Alice Defoe 152 CHAPTER TWELVE The birth traumas of Sheppard, Wild and Defoe 163 CHAPTER THIRTEEN The preacher 171 CHAPTER FOURTEEN The feminist 187 CHAPTER FIFTEEN Crusoe’s island 217 CHAPTER SIXTEEN Moll Flanders 231 CHAPTER SEVENTEEN Roxana 249 CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Apocalypse: The Political History of the Devil 263 CHAPTER NINETEEN Epilogue 282 INDEX 000 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work could not have been completed without the unsparing aid and advice given me by my amanuensis Frances Hawkins. By shar- ing with me her considerable knowledge of religious controversies prevailing in Defoe’s lifetime, by her preliminary editing and by her infinite patience in dealing with an irascible stroke-ridden deaf old man, she ensured this book reached publication. I am profoundly grateful to her. A near-nonagenarian needs incitement and encouragement to continue writing. This has been boundlessly given to me by my friends. I am therefore much indebted to: Gillon Aitken, literary agent; Reva Berstock, psychoanalyst; Michael Bloch, biographer; Rabbi Dr Sidney Brichto; Anne Brown, antiques dealer; Alan Cameron, publisher; Stuart Cameron, administrator; Paul Cavadino, penologist; Laura Coy, travel consultant; Stephen Cretney of All Souls; Michael Foot, Renaissance Man; Geoffrey Goodman, editor and biographer; John Gritten, biographer; Anthony Howard, bio- grapher; David Hughes, political editor; Hardy Jones, educationist; Brett Kahr, psychotherapist and composer; Julia Langdon, bio- grapher; Charles Leeming, solicitor; Harry Lloyd, retired magistrates’ clerk; Richard Martin, economist; Colin Merton, Savile Club vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS librarian; Christopher Morgan, religious correspondent; Paul Mur- phy, parliamentarian; David Parfitt, painter; Christopher Phillips, banker; Elizabeth Phillips, biochemist; Dacre Punt, designer; Jeremy Robson, publisher; Andrew Ross, botanist; Sally Rowe, lawyer; Mar- tin Rowson, cartoonist; Ivan Sadka, solicitor and musician; Peter Soar, solicitor, writer and carpenter; Mike Steele, lobby correspond- ent; Brian Thompson, headteacher; Richard Tilleard-Coles, psych- iatrist; Don Touhig, parliamentarian; George Warburg, banker; Ernest Woolf, psychoanalyst. I am, as ever, grateful for the help and stimulation given me by my psychoanalyst elder brother Wilfred, my poet younger brother Dannie, my historian son Tobias and my daughter Bathsheba Morabito, who has given me the blessing of my grandchildren. I am much obligated to Raymond Playford, George Lewith and Vidurath Mayadunne, whose medical skills helped me to overcome some of the disabilities caused by my stroke in 2002. And, not least, I give my thanks to my physician Stephen Hirst, who, ever reliable, fulfilled his daring promise to keep me alive to complete this essay. I would wish in this work to record, as in my previous books, my indebtedness to the Torfaen Labour Party and the electors of the Eastern Valley of Gwent who, for thirty years, with considerable forbearance, gave me the opportunity to observe, participate in and endure the strange life, sometimes ennobling, sometimes demean- ing, which is the lot of the children of the Mother of Parliaments. Without that experience, I would indeed have been ill-equipped to write of the complex political involvements of Daniel Defoe. An author, I grant, may be deficient in dress or address, may neglect his person and his fortune ... he may be full of inconsisten- cies elsewhere, but he is himself in his books: ... An author’s appearance or his actions may not square with his theories or descriptions, but his mind is seen in his writings, as his face is in the glass.... Let me, then, conjure the gentle reader, who has ever felt an attachment to books, not hastily to divorce them from their authors. Whatever love or reverence may be due to the one is equally owing to the other. The volume we prize may be little, old, shabbily bound, an imperfect copy, does not step down from the shelf to give us a graceful welcome, nor can it extend a hand to serve us in extremity, and so far may be like the author; but whatever there is of truth or good, or of proud consolation or of cheering hope, in the one, all this ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ix existed in a greater degree in the imagination and the heart and brain of the other. To cherish the work and damn the author is as if the traveller who slakes his thirst at the running stream should revile the spring-head from which it gushes. William Hazlitt (From the essay On the Jealousy and the Spleen of Party)