Defoe's writings and manliness contrary men - Gregg, Stephen H. (Ashgate, 2009)
Includes bibliographical references (pages 167-190) and index
'Complete' men, trade and history -- Born gentlemen and godly manliness -- Crusoe, toil and temptation -- A journal of the plague year: godly manliness and its limits -- Singleton, friendship and secrecy -- Colonel Jack and the perils of delusion
Defoe's Writings and Manliness is a timely intervention in Defoe studies and in the study of masculinity in eighteenth-century literature more generally. Arguing that Defoe's writings insistently returned to the issues of manliness and its contrary effeminacy, this book reveals how his writings drew upon and repeatedly tested the complex and diverse range of discourses through which masculinity was discussed in the period