This article deals with the short story written by the East German writer Stefan
Heym The Queen against Defoe, from the notes of a one Josiah Creech (1969). Stefan
Heym focuses on the arrest of the British journalist and writer Daniel Defoe following
the publication of the satirical pamphlet The Shortest Way with the Dissenters;
Or Proposal for the Establishment of the Church (1702). In the representation of
the English monarchic absolutism Heym adumbrates the political and cultural
situation which was current in the German Democratic Republic. In particular,
Heym is interested in the connection between the freedom of speech and the
action of censorship.
