A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain

[KEV67]

Daniel Defoe was a man of letters and no mistake. I started reading this. It was first published in 1724-6. I thought it would be like The Expedition of Humphry Clinker by Tobias Smollett, but it is not. It is much more factual. Humphry Clinker was about the doings of the horrible Squire Bramble. This is more like reportage. I am not very far in. Defoe is reporting on East Anglia. So far, the most shocking bit was that there was an area of lowland Essex where disease was rife. The farmers who had grown up there were immune to the diseases, but the wives they kept marrying were not. Why didn't they marry women who had grown up in the area? Anyway, Defoe has got to Ipswich. At one point of time, Ipswich was renowned for building collier ships.