The Project Gutenberg EBook of Atalantis Major, by Daniel Defoe

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Title: Atalantis Major

Author: Daniel Defoe

Release Date: October 17, 2008 [EBook #26940]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ATALANTIS MAJOR ***

Produced by David Starner and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE AUGUSTAN REPRINT SOCIETY

[DANIEL DEFOE]

Atalantis Major

(1711)

_Introduction by_

JOHN J. PERRY

PUBLICATION NUMBER 198
WILLIAM ANDREWS CLARK MEMORIAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES
1979

GENERAL EDITOR
David Stuart Rodes, _University of California, Los Angeles_

EDITORS
Charles L. Batten, _University of California, Los Angeles_
George Robert Guffey, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Maximillian E. Novak, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Thomas Wright, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

ADVISORY EDITORS
Ralph Cohen, _University of Virginia_
William E. Conway, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_
Vinton A. Dearing, _University of California, Los Angeles_
Arthur Friedman, _University of Chicago_
Louis A. Landa, _Princeton University_
Earl Miner, _Princeton University_
Samuel H. Monk, _University of Minnesota_
James Sutherland, _University College, London_
Robert Vosper, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

CORRESPONDING SECRETARY
Beverly J. Onley, _William Andrews Clark Memorial Library_

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT
Frances M. Reed, _University of California, Los Angeles_

INTRODUCTION

_Atalantis Major_ is a thinly veiled allegory describing the November
1710 election of the representative Scottish peers. The circumstances
which surrounded this election were produced by the outcome of the
previous month's General Election--a landslide for the Tories--and, to
understand these circumstances, the impact of that Tory victory must be
seen within the context of the political events of 1710.

By early in 1710 it had become obvious that the Whig Ministry of Sidney
Godolphin was unable or unwilling to negotiate an end to the long,
expensive, an