From its first publication in 1719,Robinson Crusoe has been printed in over 700 editions.It has inspired almost every conceivable kind of imitation and variation,and been the subject of plays,opera,cartoons,and computer games.The character of Crusoe has entered the consciousness of each succeeding generation as readers add their own interpretation to the adventures so thrillingly 'recorded' by Defoe.
Praised by eminent figures such as Coleridge,Rousseau and Wordsworth,this perennially popular book was cited by Karl Marx in Das Kapital to illustrate economic theory.However it is readers of all ages over the last 280 years who have given Robinson Crusoe its abiding position as a classic tale of adventure.
Daniel Defoe was most famous novel was published in 1719 with the full title,The Life and strange and surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.It is based,in fact,upon the experiences of Alexander Selkirk who had run away to sea in 1704 and requested to be left on an uninhabited island to be rescued five years later.Defoe himself was in his late fifties when he wrote the book,which is often considered to be the first English novel.Crusoe ends up on a desert island in the manner of Selkirk.With only a few supplies from the ship he builds a house,a boat and a new life.His island is not wholly uninhabited,though,and there is the exciting but ominous presence of cannibals who Crusoe occasionally encounters and saves a native from.The latter becomes his servant,Man Friday.The crew of a mutinying ship finally rescue our hero,but it is his adventure on the island that interests us.The story has remained popular ever since its publication and it spawned two sequels: later in 1719 with The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and a third part,The Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe,in 1720 which consisted of moral essays.The first novel,though,is particularly notable for its detailed verisimilitude allowing us to believe in the situation-something assisted by the uncomplicated language used by the author.
