THE STORM

On the evening of November 26, 1703, a hurricane from the north Atlantic hammered into Britain: it remains the worst storm the nation has ever experienced. Eyewitnesses saw cows thrown into trees and windmills ablaze from the friction of their whirling sailsaand some 8,000 people lost their lives. For Defoe, bankrupt and just released from prison for his aseditiousa writings, the storm struck during one of his bleakest moments. But it also furnished him with material for his first book, and in this powerful depiction of suffering and survival played out against a backdrop of natural devastation we can trace the outlines of Defoeas later masterpieces, "A Journal of the Plague Year" and "Robinson Crusoe,"