Daniel Defoe (about 1660~1731) was an important novelist in the English literature . When he was young, he served as a soldier and had been to Spain, Italy, France and Germany. At the same time, he went in for politics. He cared much about the development of capitalism . He had written a lot of articles against it and he was put into prison twice for that. It was not until he was nearly sixty that he began to write the famous novel Robinson Crusoe, which was published in May, 1709. It spread so rapidly that the story was known to _ very soon. Robinson Crusoe can be divided into three parts. The first part is about Crusoe's three voyages, the second part about his hunting, hiding in caves farming and his hard struggles against nature on a small island, the third part about the things which happened after his return from the island. The second part is the body of the novel, in which Robinson's characters are clearly shown. Defoe wrote his novel in a simple style and his language is easy to understand. His novel-writing set a milestone of the modern English novel. In his later part of life, he was in poor health and lived very poorly. He died on April 24th, 1731. What was Defoe's contribution  to the English literature?
He wrote a very interesting story. He made people happy while reading his story. He set a milestone of the modern English novel. He was active in politics and was against capitalism.