Daniel Defoe DNA Exhumation

• Monday, 04 September 2006

Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe and founder of the modern novel has skeletons in his grave as well as his cupboard, John Martin author of a new biography has discovered. John has now written to the City of London Corporation to see if they can identify the two female bodies believed to be buried with Defoe, and, if not, to support an application to the Home Office for exhumation and DNA testing.

Defoe died impoverished and was buried at Bunhill Fields in 1731 in a single unmarked grave. In 1870 William Lee, a biographer, organised a public subscription for an imposing marble obelisk honouring Defoe. When he was exhumed for reburial two other unmarked coffins were found in his grave containing skeletons of unknown women.

They may have been one or more of his three wives, only one of which officially became Mrs Defoe. Or one of his eight children, five of which were girls and most were born out of wedlock. There are other curious possibilities that John Martin is keen to investigate.

Previous biographies, despite the growing evidence to the contrary, have continued to sanctify Defoe. John Martin demonstrates however in his new book that he lived a life every bit as strange as the rogues, criminals, prostitutes and pimps that crowd the pages of his fiction.

Beyond Belief: The Real Life Of Daniel Defoe by John Martin is being published by Accent Press on 6th November 2006

ISBN 1905170564 price £19.99

For more information, to arrange interviews or review copies please call Hazel Cushion 01646 681389 or 07810 314644

This press release was distributed via Response Source, a service from Daryl Willcox Publishing, on behalf of Accent Press. For more information visit http://www.dwpub.com/pressreleasewires