Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe
05/08/2020
Robinson Crusoe is a 1719 novel by Daniel Defoe. Like several of Defoe's works, it purported to be a genuine autobiography, in this case that of an English seaman, shipwrecked for many years on a desert island off the coast of South America, who nevertheless manages to maintain a civilised existence with the help of a native servant, Friday.
The novel proved immediately and enduringly popular, inspiring a genre of castaway stories, sometimes known as Robinsonades. Modern critics have often interpreted Crusoe as representing an emergent economic individualism.
Robinson Crusoe at online book shops
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Free online texts
Gutenberg: The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. EPUB, HTML, MOBI and TXT format.
Internet Archive: Robinson Crusoe. EPUB, MOBI, PDF and TXT formats.
University of Adelaide: The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner. EPUB, HTML and MOBI formats.
Wikisource: Robinson Crusoe. HTML and other formats.
BBC Radio 4 In Our Time: Robinson Crusoe. Melvyn Bragg with Karen O'Brien, Judith Hawley and Bob Owens.
Edgar Allen Poe Society of Baltimore: Review of 1836 edition, by Edgar Allen Poe.
The Guardian: The 100 best novels - No 2 – Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719), by Robert McCrum, 23 September 2013.
Librivox: Robinson Crusoe - public domain audiobook. See also alternative version.
Wikipedia: Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe
Further reading
Ibn Tufail: Hayy ibn Yaqdhan
Edward Cooke: A Voyage to the South Sea and Round the World. Includes the story of castaway Alexander Selkirk, who may have been one of Defoe's inspirations.
Daniel Defoe: The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe - A sequel published the same year.
Daniel Defoe: Moll Flanders - Defoe's second novel, likewise purporting to be a true story.
Jonathan Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Bloom's Western Canon: Robinson Crusoe is listed.
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