April 25: Robinson Crusoe

300 years ago, in 1719. Robinson Crusoe, the first volume of Daniel Defoe's classic work was published. Here are some facts about the story.

1. The full title of the book is almost a novel in itself. Defoe titled it The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates.
2. The title character may have been named after an old school friend of Defoe's, Timothy Cruso, who became a writer of guide books.
3. The plot is as follows (Spoiler alert). Robinson's family wanted him to become a lawyer but he was drawn to the sea and joined a ship sailing from Kingston upon Hull. The ship was wrecked in a storm, but this wasn't the fateful journey. Not put off by the experience, Robinson sets sail again and this time, his ship is taken over by pirates who make him their slave for two years. He eventually escapes along with a boy called Xury who he sells to the captain of the ship which rescues him. Robinson becomes a plantation owner and settles down for a few years before embarking on his fateful trip. The purpose of the trip is to bring slaves from Africa, so you could call it karma that it was wrecked and everyone died apart from Robinson Crusoe, the captain's Dog and two Cats. Crusoe is resourceful - he salvages what he can from the ship before it sinks, builds himself a hut, grows food, makes pottery and adopts a parrot. He believes God has spared him and becomes religious. In time, he discovers that cannibals use the island from time to time as a location for feasting on their prisoners. Friday, his companion, is a prisoner who escapes from the Cannibals. Crusoe gives Friday his name, converts him to Christianity and makes him his servant. Together they rescue more prisoners.
4. Crusoe gets off the island when an English ship arrives. There has been a mutiny and the mutineers want to maroon their former captain on the island. Crusoe joins forces with the captain and his loyal men and they re-take the ship, leaving the mutineers behind. Before they sail home, however, Crusoe teaches the mutineers how to survive on the island. He arrives in England after 28 years missing, to find his family thought he was dead and left him nothing in their wills. However, his plantation in Brazil had been doing well, so Crusoe goes to Lisbon to claim the profits which he brings back to England.
5. This wasn't the end of Robinson Crusoe's story, however. Defoe wrote two sequels - The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, also published in 1719, and Serious Reflections of Robinson Crusoe published in 1720. In the first sequel, he returns to the island after the death of his wife; in the second, Friday has died and Crusoe embarks on a ten year journey to Madagascar, the Far East, and Siberia.
6. It's widely believed that Defoe's inspiration for the tale was the real-life story of Alexander Selkirk, a Scot who was marooned on an island for four years. There are other possible sources of inspiration, though. Defoe is known to have lived near a man called Henry Pitman, who was also shiwrecked on a desert island after escaping from a penal colony. Pitman had written a book about his experiences and it's entirely possible the two men met and talked.
7. Defoe might also have read a book by a twelfth century Muslim living in Spain. The book is called The Improvement of Human Reason: Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan. It is said to be the first Arabic novel and its hero is a man who lives on a desert island, and like Crusoe, raises goats and finds footprints in the sand. It is the third most translated Arabic book (after the Koran and Arabian Nights), so Defoe may well have got some of his ideas from there.
8. Robinson Crusoe spawned a whole genre of fiction called a ‘Robinsonade’, in which a person, or people, find themselves marooned somewhere. Examples include J. D. Wyss’ The Swiss Family Robinson, for which Robinson Crusoe was a major influence. This book in turn led to the 1960s TV series Lost in Space. Other examples are The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne, William Golding's Lord of the Flies, the Tom Hanks film, Cast Away, and the 1964 film, Robinson Crusoe on Mars. There has even been a pantomime version of Robinson Crusoe, starring the famous Clown Joseph Grimaldi as the title character, back in the 1790s.
9. There is a real island called Robinson Crusoe Island in the Pacific, which is, of course, nowhere near the island in the novel, which is located in the Caribbean. It's more in the ball park of where Selkirk was marooned. There is an island named for Selkirk in the area, but it's little more than a rock, not a place someone could live for four years.
10. In our more enlightened times, Robinson Crusoe has come in for a good deal of criticism for its representation of British colonialism. James Joyce is just one writer who has drawn attention to this. Crusoe turns up on the island with nothing and builds. He is the epitome of the colonialist - independent, practical, using resources and people, religious. Friday, when he appears, must be given a new name, be converted to Christianity and become Crusoe's servant.

New!

Closing the Circle

A stable wormhole has been established between Earth and Infinitus. Power Blaster and his friends can finally go home.

Desi Troyes is still at large on Earth - Power Blaster has vowed to bring him to justice. His wedding to Shanna is under threat as the Desperadoes launch an attempt to rescue their leader. 

Someone from Power Blaster's past plays an unexpected and significant role in capturing Troyes.

The return home brings its own challenges. Not everyone can return to the life they left behind, and for some, there is unfinished business to be dealt with before they can start anew.

Ben Cole in particular cannot resume his old life as a surgeon because technology no longer works around him. He plans a new life in Classica, away from technology. Shanna hears there could be a way to reverse his condition and sets out to find it, putting herself in great danger. She doesn't know she is about to uncover the secret of Power Blaster's mysterious past.

Available from:

Amazon (Paperback)

Amazon Kindle

Completes The Raiders Trilogy. 

Other books in the series:

Book One

Book Two