If ever the story of any private man's adventures in the world were worth making public, and were acceptable when published, the editor of this account thinks this will be so.
The wonders of this man's life exceed all that (he thinks) is to be found extant; the life of one man being scarce capable of a greater variety.
The story is told with modesty, with seriousness, and with a religious application of events to the uses to which wise men always apply them (viz,) to the instruction of others by this .example, and to justify and honor the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances, let them happen how they will.……
This classic story of a shipwrecked mariner on a deserted island is perhaps the greatest adventure in all of English literature. Fleeing from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm, possessing only a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe--and the will to survive. His is the saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to reconstruct his life; who painstakingly teaches himself how to fashion a pot, bake bread, build a canoe; and who,after twenty-four agonizing years of solitude, discovers a human footprint in the sand……
Consistently popular since its first publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe"s story of human endurance in an exotic, faraway land exerts a timeless appeal. The first important English novel, ROBINSON CRUSOE has taken its rightful place among the great myths of Western civilization.
Preface
A Warning
The Storm
Pirates
Escape from Slavery
Brazil
Shipwreck
Sole Survivor
First Days
The Journal: Food and Shelter
The Journal: Natural Disasters
The Journal: Illness
The Journal: Recovery.
The Journal: Exploring the Island
The Journal: Of Pots and Canoes
The Journal: Reflections
No Escape
Further Improvements
A Footprint
Bones
Fear and Isolation
The Lost Ship
Encounter with Savages
Friday Observed
Friday Instructed
New Plans
Savages Return
Prisoners Freed
The Mutineers
Ship Recaptured
Return to England
Adventures with Friday
Island Again