Robinson Crusoe and Defoe's Robinson Crusoe are both widely circulated masterpieces. 1704, Scottish sailor Selcock rebelled at sea and was thrown to a desert island off Chile. It took him five years to be saved at last. Defoe was inspired by this incident and wrote this book.

In the plague era (1722), the great plague of London in 1665 was written, which vividly described the occurrence and spread of the plague, the terror and panic it caused, the number of deaths and the escape from the plague. At that time, the plague epidemic in Marseille, France attracted special attention, and Defoe's works satisfied the public's curiosity about plague.