THE FOLIO SOCIETY

'New foundations are always laying, new buildings always raising, highways repairing, churches and public buildings erecting, fires and other calamities happening, fortunes of families taking different turns, new trades are every day erected, new projects enterprised, new designs laid ...'

When Daniel Defoe embarked on his Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain in the early 1720s, the traditional rural society that he knew and loved was already vanishing, soon to be engulfed forever by the pulsating forces of the Industrial Revolution. Drawing upon a lifetime's experiences as traveller, journalist, thinker and sometime spy, the author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders sought to capture the spirit of the people and the social processes by which new industries, new wealth and new architecture were transforming the nation before his eyes. In a series of 'circuits', Defoe traverses the length and breadth of Britain, passing comment on ruined abbeys and mighty cathedrals, dockyards, bridges, factories and market squares. Manchester is still only a 'mere village', but deserving of a Member of Parliament. Essex, a 'damp part of the world', is rife with polygamy. He masquerades as a Frenchman in the Gaelic-speaking wilds of Scotland, experiences the horrors of a Derbyshire lead mine, revels in the company at Newmarket races, and recalls how the stealing of cloth was once a beheading offence in Halifax.

Written at the peak of his literary powers, Defoe's joyous vision of a Britain in the midst of transition is arguably the greatest and liveliest guidebook ever written - and has defined the way in which the country has seen itself ever since. This sensitively selected volume is published with a wealth of paintings, drawings and engravings by artists and travellers of the time to present a truly sumptuous panorama.