Second Thoughts Are Best: or, a Further Improvement of a Late Scheme to Prevent Street Robberies is a 1729 pamphlet by Daniel Defoe. He wrote it under the name of Andrew Moreton Esq., presented as a dissatisfied middle-class old man who was extremely concerned about the increase in criminality around the 1720s.
Title page of the first edition of Second Thoughts Are Best (1729) by Andrew Moreton, alias Daniel Defoe
A Fool and His Money Soon Parted (1790) by Cruikshank, Isaac, 1756?–1811?, printmaker
Shoe Cleaner (c.1759) by Paul Sandby
Gin Lane (1751) by William Hogarth
Daniel Defoe was an English novelist, journalist, merchant, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. Defoe wrote many political tracts, was often in trouble with the authorities, and spent a period in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted him.
Daniel Defoe
Plaque honouring Daniel Defoe
Daniel Defoe in the pillory, 1862 line engraving by James Charles Armytage after Eyre Crowe
Title page from Daniel Defoe's: The History of the Union of Great Britain dated 1709 and printed in Edinburgh by the Heirs of Anderson