The Complete English Tradesman

On the 300th anniversary of Daniel Defoe’s book The Complete English Tradesman, this guest post by Jenny Mayhew makes the case for why we should be reading it today.

Daniel Defoe’s The Complete English Tradesman was published 300 years ago in 1726. This tercentenary has passed without any public fanfare (yet!)—possibly because it’s unclear who would lead the celebration. Which profession, or subject specialism, or geographic region, or community of readers, does the Tradesman “belong” to? Should this book be shelved under Literature, alongside Defoe’s fiction and political writing, or under Philosophy, Sociology, Economics or British/English/London History? Would a business practitioner get any useful tips from the handbook today? Can fans of Robinson Crusoe read the Tradesman for fun?

The answer is surely, yes—and yes, yes. Whether you’re interested in analysing Defoe’s prose style, or investigating commercial transactions in the 1720s, or more broadly curious about the changing patterns of everyday life—shopping, starting work, upskilling, gossiping, dealmaking, saving and spending, travelling, churchgoing, courtship, gambling, crisis management—The Complete English Tradesman has something for everyone.

As a gateway to multiple areas of general and scholarly interest, Defoe’s Tradesman is available to all sorts of readers for all sorts of uses. Some of us enjoy the typographical quirks of the original two-volume edition, printed as a series of ‘familiar letters’ to be sold by Charles Rivington at the Bible and Crown in St Paul’s Churchyard in 1726. Others may prefer the paperback version published by Alan Sutton in 1987, which uses the text of an 1839 edition with modernised spelling—handy for reading on a bus or Tube commute to work, perhaps.

‘The title of this work is an index of the performance,’ the author’s preface begins. ‘It is a collection of useful instructions for a young tradesman.’ In his direct, down-to-earth style, Defoe invites readers to pick out what is useful from the book’s assorted pieces of advice.

My personal interest is in the Tradesman as a rulebook or instruction manual. Having embarked on a project of reading as many advice books as I can find (from any date, but written in English and published here), I’m intrigued by the persuasive techniques used in prescriptive texts that tell people what to do and how to behave. Issuing both pragmatic and moralistic advice to individuals, Defoe’s Tradesman is a clear example of this type of work.

The book aims to provide a complete education to any tradesman, working in any form of trade: ‘…all sorts of warehousekeepers, shopkeepers, whether wholesale dealers, or retailers of goods, are called tradesmen…’ To become completely prepared for the world of work, such an individual will need to meet three objectives. It is necessary:

• ‘That he has a general knowledge of not his own particular trade and business only; that part indeed well denominates a handcraftsman to be a complete artist; but our complete tradesman ought to understand all the inland trade of England; so as to be able to turn his hand to any thing, or deal in any thing…’
• ‘That he not only has a knowledge of the species or kinds of goods, but of the places and peculiar countries, whether product or manufacture, are to be found…’
•  ‘That he understands perfectly well all the methods of correspondence, returning money or goods for goods, to and from every country in England…’

To help a reader meet these criteria, Defoe offers ‘such general maxims of trade as are fit for his instruction’, plus anecdotes, examples, explanations, metaphors and similes to reinforce each point. There are even some passages of sample dialogue, between a representative customer and shopkeeper, to  illustrate how (or how not) to talk to your clients.

Instructions are given in Defoe’s distinctively vivid style. Novice tradesmen must learn everything about their own product, first of all, so as to be able to judge ‘the goodness of the goods’. Careful bookkeeping is another essential skill, because: ‘A tradesman’s books are his repeating clock, which upon all occasions are to tell him how he goes on, and how things stand with him in the world…’ Picking his own words carefully, Defoe urges tradesmen to cultivate a ‘plainness, and a free unconstrained way of speaking’ together with an ‘easy free concise way of writing’: these tips for clear communication still apply to modern business English.  

The Tradesman’s emphasis on personal behaviour might come as a surprise to modern readers acquainted with drier, more technical business manuals. A major challenge for shopkeepers, the book warns, is keeping your temper in the face of ‘all sorts of impertinence’ from buyers. Therefore, readers must learn to exercise patience in every circumstance:

‘A tradesman behind his counter must have no flesh and blood about him, no passions, no resentment. He must never be angry; no, not so much as seem to be so.’

This advice to conquer—or at least, conceal—one’s emotions comes from a writer who’d worked as a government spy in the course of his varied career. Defoe knew at firsthand the risks and emotional strains of engaging in politics, manufacturing and mercantile ventures and overseas travel. His shipwrecked protagonist Robinson Crusoe, created a few years before the Tradesman, is shown surviving various hazards by means of mental fortitude. Both the novel and the handbook present inner strength as the foundation for practical success.

Reading the 1839 edition of Defoe’s Tradesman brings an extra layer of historical interest, because the Victorian editor adds footnotes which comment on the value for a contemporary audience of specific instructions. A hundred years after it was first published, the handbook is thus treated as a relevant and applicable guide to workplace conduct. The 1839 footnotes show us glimpses of a 19th century trading society connected to, and learning from, Defoe’s Britain.

The Complete English Tradesman was written towards the end of Defoe’s life, when he was struggling financially. It’s possible that he was living under an assumed name in order to hide from creditors because when he died, in 1731, his name was recorded in the burial register for Bunhill Fields cemetery (London) as “Mr Dabow”. Or possibly the “Dabow” was simply a spelling mistake which went uncorrected. Either way, the creator of a world-famous castaway was cast into the obscurity of a mis-recorded burial plot at the end; and although Defoe is now a famous name, his manual for tradesmen is not well known—even amongst devotees (Defoe-tees?) of his novels. Perhaps 2026 could be the year to change that.

Dr Jenny Mayhew writes the “Bossy Little Books” substack, amongst other things. Jenny is a writer, researcher, and bookworm with a PhD in Art of Dying manuals and an interest in books on manners, etiquette, and morality.

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