Which author is associated with the early realist novel tradition in English literature?

• A. Daniel Defoe
• B. Jonathan Swift
• C. Samuel Johnson
• D. Henry Fielding

Answer: (A)

Realism in the English novel begins with a focus on everyday life, social conditions, and believable detail rather than myth or romance. Daniel Defoe embodies this turn. His fiction treats ordinary people and practical problems with a documentary-like precision: survival, work, money, crime, and the contingencies of urban and colonial life, all portrayed in plain, straightforward prose. Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders present environments that readers recognize as real, with logic and cause-and-effect grounded in lived experience. This emphasis on verisimilitude—the world feeling credible because it mirrors the real world—marks him as an early figure in the realist tradition. While later writers such as Henry Fielding also pursue realistic depiction, Defoe’s work is widely credited with laying the groundwork for English realism by showing how fiction can illuminate ordinary life through concrete detail and practical concerns. Swift’s satire and Johnson’s essays operate through critique and reflection rather than sustained realistic portrayal, which is why they align with different strands of eighteenth-century writing.