Robinson Crusoe

Summary: Widely acknowledged as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe's adventure story of a shipwrecked sailor became an instant classic upon its publication in 1719 and the yardstick for countless castaway narratives to follow. Robinson Crusoe, an English sailor, finds himself marooned on a desert island after the rest of his shipmates drown in a terrible wreck. He survives on the island for nearly three decades, domesticat...ing livestock, cultivating plants, and constructing a modest home for himself. But his solitary existence is threatened when he discovers-in one of the most memorable moments in literature-another footprint in the sand. Robinson Crusoe is more than a great yarn, it is an allegory rife with moral and religious symbolism and significance, seen through the eyes of an ordinary man struggling to survive in extraordinary circumstances. Samuel Johnson wrote, "Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers ...'" [read more]