When Defoe was nearly sixty years of age he turned to fiction and wrote the great work by which he is remembered. _Robinson Crusoe_ was an instant success, and the author became famous all over Europe. Other stories followed rapidly, and Defoe earned money enough to retire to Newington and live in comfort; but not idly, for his activity in producing fiction is rivaled only by that of Walter Scott. Thus, in 1720 appeared _Captain Singleton, Duncan Campbell_, and _Memoirs of a Cavalier_; in 1722, _Colonel Jack, Moll Flanders_, and the amazingly realistic _Journal of the Plague Year_. So the list grows with astonishing rapidity, ending with the _History of the Devil_ in 1726. In the latter year Defoe's secret connection with the government became known, and a great howl of indignation rose against him in the public print, destroying in an hour the popularity which he had gained by a lifetime of intrigue and labor. He fled from his home to London, where he died obscurely, in 1731, while hiding from real or imaginary enemies. WORKS OF DEFOE. At the head of the list stands _Robinson Crusoe_ (1719- 1720), one of the few books in any literature which has held its popularity undiminished for nearly two centuries. The story is based upon the experiences of Alexander Selkirk, or Selcraig, who had been marooned in the island of Juan Fernandez, off the coast of Chile, and who had lived there in solitude for five years. On his return to England in 1709, Selkirk's experiences became known, and Steele published an account of them in _The Englishman_, without, however, attracting any wide attention. That Defoe used Selkirk's story is practically certain; but with his usual duplicity he claimed to have written _Crusoe_ in 1708, a year before Selkirk's return. However that may be, the story itself is real enough to have come straight from a sailor's logbook. Defoe, as shown in his _Journal of the Plague Year_ and his _Memoirs of a Cavalier_, had the art of describing things he had never seen with the accuracy of an eyewitness.