Daniel Defoe, Conjugal Lewdness

Liz Bellamy (The Open University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.05: English Writing and Culture from the Glorious Revolution to the French Revolution, 1689-1789.
Vol. editors: Paul Baines (University of Liverpool), Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Pat Rogers (University of South Florida), Nicholas Seager (University of Keele)

Domains

Moral Philosophy and Ethics

Dates

First circulation or publication 1727

Places

England (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Treatise

Resources

Daniel Defoe’s Conjugal Lewdness: or, Matrimonial Whoredom was published in 1727, when Defoe was in his late sixties and approaching the end of his life, although the Preface suggests that the book was begun almost thirty years earlier (p. iv). Like so many of Defoe’s works, it immediately provoked controversy. The Introduction describes the adverse response that greeted the advance publicity for the book, with critics attacking the work’s title, which, according to Defoe, was viewed as “a Breach upon Modesty” and offensive to their ears (p. 7). This may in part explain why, in a second edition published a few months after the first, it was more innocuously entitled A Treatise Concerning the Use and Abuse of the …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1056 words

Citation: Bellamy, Liz. "Conjugal Lewdness". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 22 March 2005 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=5916, accessed 24 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here