Alexander Selkirk--the sailor whose true story inspired Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel, Robinson Crusoe--was abandoned on a desert island.

FORBES: Castaway

" The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe", by Daniel Defoe.

ECONOMIST: Sources and acknowledgments

Daniel Defoe may have written the first nonfiction novel "A Journal of the Plague Year, " published in 1722, an account of the year the Black Death decimated London.

WSJ: Dear Book Lover: Fiction that Reads Like Nonfiction

One other report from old London is Daniel Defoe's "A Journal of the Plague Year, " a fictional, though chillingly persuasive, account of the metropolis under siege from the Great Plague in 1665.

WSJ: Novels Set in London | Dear Book Lover

Local media, including Jonathan Swift in the Examiner, and Daniel Defoe, provided unconditional support for the investment company to the extent that Isaac Newton and thousands of ordinary citizens invested and lost.

ECONOMIST: Letters

Daniel Defoe, on the other hand, was incensed.

WSJ: The Fine Points of Fan Fiction, from 'Fifty Shades' to 'Lavinia' | Dear Book Lover

Peter, so named because it was initially the only word he would respond to, became the subject of satires by Jonathan Swift and Daniel Defoe as his fame spread, and a wax figure of him was exhibited in the Strand.

BBC: Peter the Wild Boy grave gets Grade II listing