Dating the Devil: Daniel Defoe's Roxana and The Political History of the Devil.(Critical Essay) From: Christianity and Literature | Date: June 22, 2004| Author: McInelly, Brett C.; Paxman, David | COPYRIGHT 2004 Conference on Christianity and Literature. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

In 1724 Daniel Defoe published his last novel, Roxana, and began writing works on the occult, including The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magic (1726), and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). Maximillian E. Novak has suggested that the meager financial success of Roxana may have led Defoe to abandon fiction (Daniel Defoe 624) and then turn his attention to answering contemporary attacks on orthodox Christianity and the Bible ("Defoe" 94)....