An Essay Upon Projects
An Essay Upon Projects (1697) was the first volume published by Daniel Defoe.[1] It begins with a portrait of his time as a "Projecting Age"[2] and subsequently illustrates plans for the economic and social improvement of England,[3] including an early proposal for a national insurance scheme.
Publication
The text was written in 1693 and published in 1697. The frontispiece state "printed by R. R. for Tho. Cockerill, at the Corner of Warwick-Lane, near Paternoster – Row. MDCXCVII". There is no known manuscript of the work. The essay was reprinted several times and reached a wide audience.[4]:105 The book was dedicated Dalby Thomas
Subsequent publications on the same theme
Many of its issues were later revised in a series of pamphlets which were published under the nom-de-plume of Andrew Moreton.[1] They are titled Every-body's Business, Is No-body's Business (1725), The Protestant Monastery (1726), Parochial Tyranny (1727), Augusta Triumphans (1728) and Second Thoughts are Best (1729).[1] Compared to these works, however, An Essay Upon Projects is more focused on moral criticism than being project-oriented.[5]
A list of the chapters
- Author's Preface - to Dalby Thomas, Esq.
- Author's Introduction
- The History of Projects
- Of Projectors
- Of Banks
- Of the Highways
- Of Assurances
- Of Friendly Societies
- The Proposal is for a Pension Office
- Of Wagering
- Of Fools
- Of Bankrupts
- Of Academies
- Of a Court Merchant
- Of Seamen
- The Conclusion
References
- P B, Backscheider (1989). Daniel Defoe.His Life. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 517.
- D, Defoe (1887). An Essay Upon Projects. London, Paris, New York and Melbourne: Cassell & Company.
- "Social Projects". Indiana.edu. Indiana University Bloomington. 2008. Retrieved 10 September 2015.
- Zekonyte, Kristina (2018). Projectors in seventeenth century England and their relevance to the field of project management — The University of Brighton. Brighton: University of Brighton.
- M E, Novak (2001). Daniel Defoe. Master of Fictions. United States of America: Oxford University Press. p. 680.
Bibliography
- Backscheider, P B, Daniel Defoe.His Life, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London, 1989.
- “Social Projects”, Daniel Defoe. The Collection of the Lily Library, Indiana University Bloomington, 2008, retrieved 25 October 2015, <http://www.indiana.edu/~liblilly/defoe/projects.html>
- George, M D, London Life in the Eighteenth Century, Penguin Books, Great Britain, 1979.
- Maldonado, T, “Defoe and the ‘Projecting Age’”,MIT Press, vol. 18, no. 1, 2002, pp. 78-85, retrieved 20 October 2015, JSTOR, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/1512032>
- Moore, J R, "Defoe's Persona as Author: The Quaker's Sermon", SEL: Studies in English Literature 1500–1900, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 507-516, retrieved 20 November 2015, JSTOR, <https://www.jstor.org/stable/449910>
- Novak, M E, “Last Productive Years”,Daniel Defoe Master of Fictions. His Life and Ideas, Oxford University Press, United States of America, 2001.
External links
- Daniel Defoe. The Collection of the Lily Library
- An Essay Upon Projects by Daniel Defoe in the Gutenberg Project