Here are a few, all utterly unknown in his own day, collected by a student of his works; a Board of Trade register for seamen; factories for goods: agricultural credit banks; a commission of enquiry into bankruptcy; and a system of national poor relief.

They show him to have been an independent and courageous thinker where social questions were concerned.
He was nearly sixty before he had published his first novel, _Robinson Crusoe_, the book by which he is universally known, and on which with the seven other novels which followed it the foundation of his literary fame rests.

But his earlier works--they are reputed to number over two hundred--possess no less remarkable literary qualities.

It is not too much to say that all the gifts which are habitually recommended for cultivation by those who aspire to journalistic success are to be found in his prose.

He has in the first place the gift of perfect lucidity no matter how complicated the subject he is expounding; such a book as his _Complete English Tradesman_ is full of passages in which complex and difficult subject-matter is set forth so plainly and clearly that the least literate of his readers could have no doubt of his understanding it.