Daniel Defoe’s classic tale of a solitary castaway’s survival and triumph, widely considered to be the first English novel.
“I, poor miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked, came on shore on this dismal unfortunate island, all the rest of the ship’s company being drowned. In despair of any relief, I saw nothing but death before me…”
Thus Crusoe begins his journal in Daniel Defoe’s classic novel: the vividly realistic account of a solitary castaway’s triumph over nature—and over the fears, self-doubt and loneliness that are parts of human nature.
For almost three centuries,Robinson Crusoehas remained one of the best known and most read tales in modern literature, a popularity owing as much to the enduring freshness and immediacy of its style as to its widely acknowledged status as the very first English novel.
Daniel Defoe(1660-1731) is the author of
Robinson Crusoe,
Moll Flanders, and
A Journal of the Plague Year.
Paul Therouxis the award-winning author of such novels as
Picture Palaceand
The Mosquito Coastas well as numerous bestselling travel books, including
The Great Railway Bazaar.
Robert Thayeris Professor of British Literature and Director of the Screen Studies Program at Oklahoma State University and the author of
History and the Early English Novel: Matters of Fact from Bacon to Defoe.I was born in the Year 1632, in the City of York, of a good Family, tho not of that Country, my Father being a Foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull: He got a good Estate by Merchandise, and leaving off his Trade, lived afterward at York, from whence he had married my Mother, whose Relations were named Robinson, a very good Family in that Country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but by the usual Corruption of Words in England, we are now called,l3#