Robinson Crusoe has captured the imagination of countless readers with its vivid evocation of one man’s survival on a remote island, far from the civilication he knows.

Thought to be one of the first English novels,Robinson Crusoe is the timeless story of a merchant’s trading voyages and adventures at sea, his shipwreck and subsequent life marooned alone. Based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, it is fascinating in its descriptions of Crusoe’s ingenuity and inventiveness,his ability to make and use tools, his discovery of man Friday and his treatment of him.

In addition to this, Robinson Crusoe is also an exploration of the ways in which a man who had made his fortune in trade is able to survive in reasonable comfort, thanks to his resourcefulness,when goods and money can no longer be of any value to him.

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 sedousness,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 honour the wisdom of Providence in all the variety of our circumstances, let them happen how they will.

The editor believes the thing to be a just history of fact; neither is there any appearance of fiction in it. And however thinks, because all such things are disputed, that the improvement of it, as well to the diversion, as to the instruction of the reader, will be the same; and as such,he thinks, without further compliment to the world, he does them a great service in the publication.

Preface 

I Go to Sea 

I Am Captured by Pirates 

I Escape/tom the Sallee Rover 

I Become a Brazilian Planter 

I Go on Board in an Evil Hour 

I Furnish Myself with Many Things 

I Build My Fortress 

The Journal 

 I Throw Away the Husks of Corn 

 It Blows a Most Dreadful Hurricane 

 I Am Very Ill and Frighted 

 I Take a Survey of the Island 

I Sow My Grain 

I Travel Quite Across the Island 

I Am Very Seldom Idle 

I Make Myself a Canoe 

I Improve Myself in the Mechanic Exercises 

I Find the Print of a Man’s Naked Foot 

I See the Shore Spread with Bones 

I Seldom Go from My Cell

I See the Wreck of a Ship 

I Hear the First Sound of a Man’s Voice

I Call Him Friday

We Make Another Canoe 

We March Out Against the Cannibals

We Plan a Voyage to the Colonies of America 

We Quell a Mutiny 

We Seize the Ship 

I Find My Wealth All About Me 

We Cross the Mountains 

I Revisit My Island