======================================================================
= Robinson_Crusoe =
======================================================================
Introduction
======================================================================
'Robinson Crusoe' ( ) is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe,
first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of
epistolary, confessional, and didactic forms, the book follows the
title character (born Robinson Kreutznaer) after he is cast away and
spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of
Venezuela and Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and
mutineers before being rescued. The story has been thought to be based
on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for
four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (now part of
Chile) which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. Pedro Serrano
is another real-life castaway whose story might have inspired the
novel.
The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as
its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and
that the book was a non-fiction travelogue. Despite its simple
narrative style, 'Robinson Crusoe' was well received in the literary
world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic
fiction as a literary genre. Some allege it is a contender for the
first English novel.
Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four
editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely
published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in
literature but also in film, television, and radio, that its name is
used to define a genre, the Robinsonade.
Plot summary
======================================================================
Robinson Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name
"Kreutznaer") sets sail from Kingston upon Hull, England, on a sea
voyage in August 1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted
him to pursue a career in law. After a tumultuous journey where his
ship is wrecked in a storm, his desire for the sea remains so strong
that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too, ends in disaster, as
the ship is taken over by Salé pirates (the Salé Rovers) and Crusoe is
enslaved by a Moor. Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy
named Xury; a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of
Africa rescues him. The ship is 'en route' to Brazil. Crusoe sells
Xury to the captain. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a
plantation in Brazil.
Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to purchase slaves from Africa
but the ship gets blown off course in a storm about forty miles out to
sea and runs aground on the sandbar of an island off the Venezuelan
coast (which he calls the 'Island of Despair') near the mouth of the
Orinoco River on 30 September 1659. The crew lowers the jolly boat,
but it gets swamped by a tidal wave, drowning the crew, but leaving
Crusoe the sole human survivor. He observes the latitude as 9 degrees
and 22 minutes north. He sees penguins and seals on this island. Aside
from Crusoe, the captain's dog and two cats survive the shipwreck.
Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from
the ship before the next storm breaks it apart. He builds a fenced-in
habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden
cross, he creates a calendar post to keep track of his time on the
island. Over the years, by using tools salvaged from the ship, and
some which he makes himself, he hunts animals, grows barley and rice,
dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and traps and
raises goats. He also adopts a small parrot. He reads the Bible and
becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is
missing but human society. He also builds two boats: a large dugout
canoe that he intends to use to sail to the mainland, but ends up
being too large and too far from water to launch, and a smaller boat
that he uses to explore the coast of the island.
More years pass and Crusoe discovers cannibals, who occasionally visit
the island to kill and eat prisoners. Alarmed at this, he conserves
the ammunition he'd used for hunting (running low at that point) for
defence and fortifies his home in case the cannibals discover his
presence on the island. He plans to kill them for committing an
abomination, but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the
cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. One day, Crusoe finds that
a Spanish Galleon has run aground on the island during a storm, but
his hopes for rescue are dashed when he discovers that the crew
abandoned ship. Nevertheless, the abandoned galleon's untouched
supplies of food and ammunition, along with the ship's dog, add to
Crusoe's reserves. Every night, he dreams of obtaining one or two
servants by freeing some prisoners; during the cannibals' next visit
to the island, when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his
new companion "Friday" after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe
teaches Friday the English language and converts him to Christianity.
Crusoe soon learns from Friday that the crew from the shipwrecked
galleon he'd found had escaped to the mainland and are now living with
Friday's tribe. Seeing renewed hope for rescue and with Friday's
help, Crusoe builds another, but smaller, dugout canoe for a renewed
plan to sail to the mainland. After more cannibals arrive to partake
in a feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of them and save two
prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who
informs Crusoe about the other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland.
A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland
with Friday's father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail
to a Spanish port.
Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; the sailors have
staged a mutiny against their captain and intend to leave him and
those still loyal to him on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain
strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors
retake the ship. With their ringleader executed by the captain, the
mutineers take up Crusoe's offer to remain on the island rather than
being returned to England as prisoners to be hanged. Before embarking
for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island
and states that the Spaniards will be coming.
Crusoe leaves the island on 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on
11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a
result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for
Lisbon to reclaim the profits of his estate in Brazil, which has
granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth
overland to England from Portugal to avoid travelling by sea. Friday
accompanies him and, 'en route', they endure one last adventure
together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the
Pyrenees.
Characters
======================================================================
* Robinson Crusoe: The narrator of the novel who gets shipwrecked.
* Friday: A native Caribbean whom Crusoe saves from cannibalism, and
subsequently named "Friday". He becomes a servant and friend to
Crusoe.
* Xury: Servant to Crusoe after they escape slavery from the Captain
of the Rover together. He is later given to the Portuguese Sea Captain
as an indentured servant.
* The Widow: Friend to Crusoe who looks over his assets while he is
away.
* Portuguese Sea Captain: Rescues Crusoe after he escapes from
slavery. Later helps him with his money and plantation.
* The Spaniard: A man rescued by Crusoe and Friday from the cannibals
who later helps them escape the island.
* Friday's father: rescued by Crusoe and Friday at the same time as
the Spaniard.
* Robinson Crusoe's father: A merchant named Kreutznaer.
* Captain of the Rover: Moorish pirate of Sallee who captures and
enslaves Crusoe.
* Traitorous crew members: members of a mutinied ship who appear
towards the end of novel
* The Savages: Cannibals that come to Crusoe's Island and who
represent a threat to Crusoe's religious and moral convictions as well
as his own safety.
Sources and real-life castaways
======================================================================
There were many stories of real-life castaways in Defoe's time. Most
famously, Defoe's suspected inspiration for 'Robinson Crusoe' is
thought to be Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years
on the uninhabited island of Más a Tierra (renamed Robinson Crusoe
Island in 1966) in the Juan Fernández Islands off the Chilean coast.
Selkirk was rescued in 1709 by Woodes Rogers during a British
expedition that led to the publication of Selkirk's adventures in both
'A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World' and 'A Cruising
Voyage Around the World' in 1712. According to Tim Severin, "Daniel
Defoe, a secretive man, neither confirmed nor denied that Selkirk was
the model for the hero of his book. Apparently written in six months
or less, 'Robinson Crusoe' was a publishing phenomenon."
According to Andrew Lambert, author of 'Crusoe's Island', it is a
"false premise" to suppose that Defoe's novel was inspired by the
experiences of a single person such as Selkirk, because the story is
"a complex compound of all the other buccaneer survival stories."
However, 'Robinson Crusoe' is far from a copy of Rogers' account:
Becky Little argues three events that distinguish the two stories:
# Robinson Crusoe was shipwrecked while Selkirk decided to leave his
ship, thus marooning himself;
# The island that Crusoe was shipwrecked on had already been
inhabited, unlike the solitary nature of Selkirk's adventures.
# The last and most crucial difference between the two stories is that
Selkirk was a privateer, looting and raiding coastal cities during the
War of Spanish Succession.
"The economic and dynamic thrust of the book is completely alien to
what the buccaneers are doing," Lambert says. "The buccaneers just
want to capture some loot and come home and drink it all, and Crusoe
isn't doing that at all. He's an economic imperialist: He's creating a
world of trade and profit."
Other possible sources for the narrative include Ibn Tufail's 'Hayy
ibn Yaqdhan', and Spanish sixteenth-century sailor Pedro Serrano. Ibn
Tufail's 'Hayy ibn Yaqdhan' is a twelfth-century philosophical novel
also set on a desert island, and translated from Arabic into Latin and
English a number of times in the half-century preceding Defoe's novel.
Pedro Luis Serrano was a Spanish sailor who was marooned for seven or
eight years on a small desert island after shipwrecking in the 1520s
on a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua. He had
no access to fresh water and lived off the blood and flesh of sea
turtles and birds. He was quite a celebrity when he returned to
Europe; before passing away, he recorded the hardships suffered in
documents that show the endless anguish and suffering, the product of
absolute abandonment to his fate, now held in the General Archive of
the Indies, in Seville. It is quite possible that Defoe heard his
story in one of his visits to Spain before becoming a writer.
Yet another source for Defoe's novel may have been the Robert Knox
account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon Rajasinha II of Kandy
in 1659 in 'An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon'.
Severin (2002) unravels a much wider range of potential sources of
inspiration, and concludes by identifying castaway surgeon Henry
Pitman as the most likely:
:An employee of the Duke of Monmouth, Pitman played a part in the
Monmouth Rebellion. His short book about his desperate escape from a
Caribbean penal colony, followed by his shipwrecking and subsequent
desert island misadventures, was published by John Taylor of
Paternoster Row, London, whose son William Taylor later published
Defoe's novel.
Severin argues that since Pitman appears to have lived in the lodgings
above the father's publishing house and that Defoe himself was a
mercer in the area at the time, Defoe may have met Pitman in person
and learned of his experiences first-hand, or possibly through
submission of a draft. Severin also discusses another publicized case
of a marooned man named only as Will, of the Miskito people of Central
America, who may have led to the depiction of Friday.
Secord (1963) analyses the composition of 'Robinson Crusoe' and gives
a list of possible sources of the story, rejecting the common theory
that the story of Selkirk is Defoe's only source.
Reception and sequels
======================================================================
The book was published on 25 April 1719. Before the end of the year,
this first volume had run through four editions.
By the end of the nineteenth century, no book in the history of
Western literature had more editions, spin-offs, and translations
(even into languages such as Inuktitut, Coptic, and Maltese) than
'Robinson Crusoe', with more than 700 such alternative versions,
including children's versions with pictures and no text.
The term "Robinsonade" was coined to describe the genre of stories
similar to 'Robinson Crusoe'.
Defoe went on to write a lesser-known sequel, 'The Farther Adventures
of Robinson Crusoe' (1719). It was intended to be the last part of his
stories, according to the original title page of the sequel's first
edition, but a third book was published (1720), 'Serious Reflections
During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his
Vision of the Angelick World'.
Interpretations of the novel
======================================================================
The novel has been subject to numerous analyses and interpretations
since its publication. In a sense, Crusoe attempts to replicate his
society on the island. This is achieved through the use of European
technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy.
Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the "king" of
the island, while the captain describes him as the "governor" to the
mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is referred to as a
"colony". The idealized master-servant relationship Defoe depicts
between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural
assimilation, with Crusoe representing the "enlightened" European
while Friday is the "savage" who can only be redeemed from his
cultural manners through assimilation into Crusoe's culture.
Nonetheless, Defoe used Friday to criticize the Spanish colonization
of the Americas.
According to J.P. Hunter, Robinson is not a hero but an everyman. He
begins as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand, and
ends as a pilgrim, crossing a final mountain to enter the promised
land. The book tells the story of how Robinson becomes closer to God,
not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time
alone amongst nature with only a Bible to read.
Conversely, cultural critic and literary scholar Michael Gurnow views
the novel from a Rousseauian perspective: The central character's
movement from a primitive state to a more civilized one is interpreted
as Crusoe's denial of humanity's state of nature.
'Robinson Crusoe' is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was a
Puritan moralist and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing
books on how to be a good Puritan Christian, such as 'The New Family
Instructor' (1727) and 'Religious Courtship' (1722). While 'Robinson
Crusoe' is far more than a guide, it shares many of the themes and
theological and moral points of view.
"Crusoe" may have been taken from Timothy Cruso, a classmate of
Defoe's who had written guide books, including 'God the Guide of
Youth' (1695), before dying at an early age - just eight years before
Defoe wrote 'Robinson Crusoe'. Cruso would have been remembered by
contemporaries and the association with guide books is clear. It has
even been speculated that 'God the Guide of Youth' inspired 'Robinson
Crusoe' because of a number of passages in that work that are closely
tied to the novel. A leitmotif of the novel is the Christian notion of
providence, penitence, and redemption. Crusoe comes to repent of the
follies of his youth. Defoe also foregrounds this theme by arranging
highly significant events in the novel to occur on Crusoe's birthday.
The denouement culminates not only in Crusoe's deliverance from the
island, but his spiritual deliverance, his acceptance of Christian
doctrine, and in his intuition of his own salvation.
When confronted with the cannibals, Crusoe wrestles with the problem
of cultural relativism. Despite his disgust, he feels unjustified in
holding the natives morally responsible for a practice so deeply
ingrained in their culture. Nevertheless, he retains his belief in an
absolute standard of morality; he regards cannibalism as a "national
crime" and forbids Friday from practising it.
Economics and civilization
============================
In classical, neoclassical and Austrian economics, Crusoe is regularly
used to illustrate the theory of production and choice in the absence
of trade, money, and prices. Crusoe must allocate effort between
production and leisure and must choose between alternative production
possibilities to meet his needs. The arrival of Friday is then used to
illustrate the possibility of trade and the gains that result.
The work has been variously read as an allegory for the development of
civilization; as a manifesto of economic individualism; and as an
expression of European colonial desires. Significantly, it also shows
the importance of repentance and illustrates the strength of Defoe's
religious convictions. Critic M.E. Novak supports the connection
between the religious and economic themes within 'Robinson Crusoe',
citing Defoe's religious ideology as the influence for his portrayal
of Crusoe's economic ideals, and his support of the individual. Novak
cites Ian Watt's extensive research which explores the impact that
several Romantic Era novels had against economic individualism, and
the reversal of those ideals that takes place within 'Robinson
Crusoe'.
In Tess Lewis's review, "The heroes we deserve", of Ian Watt's
article, she furthers Watt's argument with a development on Defoe's
intention as an author, "to use individualism to signify nonconformity
in religion and the admirable qualities of self-reliance". This
further supports the belief that Defoe used aspects of spiritual
autobiography to introduce the benefits of individualism to a not
entirely convinced religious community. J. Paul Hunter has written
extensively on the subject of 'Robinson Crusoe' as apparent spiritual
autobiography, tracing the influence of Defoe's Puritan ideology
through Crusoe's narrative, and his acknowledgement of human
imperfection in pursuit of meaningful spiritual engagements - the
cycle of "repentance [and] deliverance".
This spiritual pattern and its episodic nature, as well as the
re-discovery of earlier female novelists, have kept 'Robinson Crusoe'
from being classified as a novel, let alone the first novel written in
English - despite the blurbs on some book covers. Early critics, such
as Robert Louis Stevenson, admired it, saying that the footprint scene
in 'Crusoe' was one of the four greatest in English literature and
most unforgettable; more prosaically, Wesley Vernon has seen the
origins of forensic podiatry in this episode. It has inspired a new
genre, the 'Robinsonade', as works such as Johann David Wyss' 'The
Swiss Family Robinson' (1812) adapt its premise and has provoked
modern postcolonial responses, including J. M. Coetzee's 'Foe' (1986)
and Michel Tournier's 'Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique' (in
English, 'Friday, or, The Other Island') (1967). Two sequels
followed: Defoe's 'The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' (1719)
and his 'Serious reflections during the life and surprising adventures
of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the angelick world' (1720).
Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels' (1726) is in part a parody of
Defoe's adventure novel.
Influence on language
=======================
The book proved to be so popular that the names of the two main
protagonists, Crusoe and Friday, have entered the language. During
World War II, people who decided to stay and hide in the ruins of the
German-occupied city of Warsaw for a period of three winter months,
from October to January 1945, when they were rescued by the Red Army,
were later called Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw ('Robinsonowie
warszawscy'). Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as "my
man Friday", from which the term "Man Friday" (or "Girl Friday")
originated.
Influence on literature
=========================
'Robinson Crusoe' marked the beginning of realistic fiction as a
literary genre. Its success led to many imitators; and castaway
novels, written by Ambrose Evans, Penelope Aubin, and others, became
quite popular in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of
these have fallen into obscurity, but some became established,
including 'The Swiss Family Robinson', which borrowed Crusoe's first
name for its title.
Jonathan Swift's 'Gulliver's Travels', published seven years after
'Robinson Crusoe', may be read as a systematic rebuttal of Defoe's
optimistic account of human capability. In 'The Unthinkable Swift: The
Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man', Warren Montag
argues that Swift was concerned about refuting the notion that the
individual precedes society, as Defoe's novel seems to suggest. In
'Treasure Island', author Robert Louis Stevenson parodies Crusoe with
the character of Ben Gunn, a friendly castaway who was marooned for
many years, has a wild appearance, dresses entirely in goat skin, and
constantly talks about providence.
In Jean-Jacques Rousseau's treatise on education, 'Emile, or on
Education', the one book the protagonist is allowed to read before the
age of twelve is 'Robinson Crusoe'. Rousseau wants Emile to identify
himself as Crusoe so he can rely upon himself for all of his needs. In
Rousseau's view, Emile needs to imitate Crusoe's experience, allowing
necessity to determine what is to be learned and accomplished. This is
one of the main themes of Rousseau's educational model.
In 'The Tale of Little Pig Robinson', Beatrix Potter directs the
reader to 'Robinson Crusoe' for a detailed description of the island
(the land of the Bong tree) to which her eponymous hero moves. In
Wilkie Collins' most popular novel, 'The Moonstone', one of the chief
characters and narrators, Gabriel Betteredge, has faith in all that
Robinson Crusoe says and uses the book for a sort of divination. He
considers 'The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' the finest book ever
written, reads it over and over again, and considers a man but poorly
read if he had happened not to read the book.
French novelist Michel Tournier published 'Friday, or, The Other
Island' (French 'Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique') in 1967. His
novel explores themes including civilization versus nature, the
psychology of solitude, as well as death and sexuality in a retelling
of Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe' story. Tournier's Robinson chooses to
remain on the island, rejecting civilization when offered the chance
to escape 28 years after being shipwrecked. Likewise, in 1963, J. M.
G. Le Clézio, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature, published
the novel 'Le Proces-Verbal'. The book's epigraph is a quote from
'Robinson Crusoe', and like Crusoe, the novel's protagonist Adam Pollo
suffers long periods of loneliness.
"Crusoe in England", a 183 line poem by Elizabeth Bishop, imagines
Crusoe near the end of his life, recalling his time of exile with a
mixture of bemusement and regret.
J. M. Coetzee's 1986 novel 'Foe' recounts the tale of Robinson Crusoe
from the perspective of a woman named Susan Barton.
Other stories that share similar themes to 'Robinson Crusoe' include
William Golding's 'Lord Of The Flies' (1954), J. G. Ballard's
'Concrete Island' (1974), and Andy Weir's 'The Martian' (2011).
Inverted Crusoeism
====================
The term "inverted Crusoeism" was coined by J. G. Ballard. The
paradigm of Robinson Crusoe has been a recurring topic in Ballard's
work. Whereas the original Robinson Crusoe became a castaway against
his own will, Ballard's protagonists often choose to maroon
themselves; hence inverted Crusoeism (e.g., Concrete Island). The
concept provides a reason as to why people would deliberately maroon
themselves on a remote island; in Ballard's work, becoming a castaway
is as much a healing and empowering process as an entrapping one,
enabling people to discover a more meaningful and vital existence.
Comic strip adaptations
=========================
The story was also illustrated and published in comic book form by
'Classics Illustrated' in 1943 and 1957. The much improved 1957
version was inked / penciled by Sam Citron, who is most well known for
his contributions to the earlier issues of 'Superman'. British
illustrator Reginald Ben Davis drew a female version of the story
titled 'Jill Crusoe, Castaway' (1950-1959).
Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of 'The New Yorker' attributes the genre
of desert island cartoons, which began appearing in the publication in
the 1930s, to the popularity of Robinson Crusoe.
Stage adaptations
===================
A pantomime version of 'Robinson Crusoe' was staged at the Theatre
Royal, Drury Lane in 1796, with Joseph Grimaldi as Pierrot in the
harlequinade. The piece was produced again in 1798, this time starring
Grimaldi as Clown. In 1815, Grimaldi played Friday in another version
of 'Robinson Crusoe'.
Jacques Offenbach wrote an opéra comique called 'Robinson Crusoé',
which was first performed at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 23 November
1867. This was based on the British pantomime version rather than the
novel itself. The libretto was by Eugène Cormon and Hector-Jonathan
Crémieux.
There have been a number of other stage adaptations, including those
by Isaac Pocock, Jim Helsinger and Steve Shaw and a musical by Victor
Prince.
Film adaptations
==================
There is a 1927 silent film titled 'Robinson Crusoe'. The Soviet 3D
film 'Robinson Crusoe' was produced in 1947.
One of the first adaptations still available dates from 1932 titled
'Mr. Robinson Crusoe'. This film was produced by Douglas Fairbanks Sr
and directed by Eddie Sutherland. Set in Tahiti, the film depicts
Steve Drexel, the main character, trying to survive on a desert island
for almost a year. This film was not very successful.
Luis Buñuel directed 'Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' starring Dan
O'Herlihy, released in 1954. Luis Buñuel filmed an account which at
first viewing appeared to be a rather simple straightforward telling
of Robinson Crusoe. A big stand out with this film is that Buñuel
breaks the previous films' traditions of having Friday as a slave and
Crusoe as the master. The two manage to become actually friends and
they operate essentially as equals.
In 1966, Walt Disney later comedicized the novel with 'Lt. Robin
Crusoe, U.S.N.', featuring Dick Van Dyke. In this version, Friday
became a beautiful woman, but named 'Wednesday' instead.
Variations on the theme include the 1954 'Miss Robin Crusoe', with a
female castaway, played by Amanda Blake, and a female Friday, and in
1965 we get the film adaptation 'Robinson Crusoe on Mars', starring
Paul Mantee, with an alien Friday portrayed by Victor Lundin and an
added character played by Adam West. Byron Haskins manages to
underscore Crusoe's removal and field of the red planet that we call
mars. Our main character meets a Friday-esque character but makes no
effort to try and understand his language. Like the book, in this
film, Friday is trying to escape from cruel masters. This movie has
lots of appeal to fans of adventures stories and the film has a
distinctive visual style that adds to its character.
In 1968, American writer/director Ralph C. Bluemke made a
family-friendly version of the story titled 'Robby', in which the main
characters were portrayed as children. It starred Warren Raum as Robby
(Robinson Crusoe) and Ryp Siani as Friday (who were the director's
first choices for the roles). Bluemke originally conceived the idea
while working at a bank in 1960. Given the nature and location of the
script, Bluemke knew from the beginning that the film would require a
certain amount of nudity in order to give it a sense of realism and
authenticity. At the time, he was under the impression that the nudity
depicted in the film would be condoned as natural and innocent, given
the backdrop of the story, and given that the actors involved were
prepubescent boys. The film failed to secure a wide distribution
deal, in part because prospective distributors were wary about the
extensive nudity featured in the film. Undaunted, the producers raised
enough capital to release the film themselves, acting as their own
distributor. It had limited screenings on Broadway in New York City on
August 14, 1968.
Peter O'Toole and Richard Roundtree co-starred in a 1975 film 'Man
Friday' which sardonically portrayed Crusoe as incapable of seeing his
dark-skinned companion as anything but an inferior creature, while
Friday is more enlightened and sympathetic. In 1988, Aidan Quinn
portrayed Robinson Crusoe in the film 'Crusoe'. A 1997 movie entitled
'Robinson Crusoe' starred Pierce Brosnan and received limited
commercial success. The 2000 film 'Cast Away', with Tom Hanks as a
FedEx employee stranded on an island for many years, also borrows much
from the Robinson Crusoe story.
In 1981, Czechoslovakian director and animator Stanislav Látal made a
version of the story under the name 'Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, a
Sailor from York' combining traditional and stop-motion animation. The
movie was coproduced by regional West Germany broadcaster Südwestfunk
Baden-Baden.
Animated adaptations
======================
In 1988, an animated cartoon for children called 'Classic Adventure
Stories Robinson Crusoe' was released. Crusoe's early sea travels are
simplified, as his ship outruns the Salé Rovers pirates but then gets
wrecked in a storm.
And then in 1995 the BBC first aired the series 'Robinson Sucroe'
until 1998, with The Children's Channel and Pop repeating it.
Radio adaptations
===================
'Daniel Defoe - Robinson Crusoe' was adapted as a two-part play for
BBC radio. Dramatised by Steve Chambers and directed by Marion
Nancarrow, and starring Roy Marsden and Tom Bevan, it was first
broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1998. It was subsequently rebroadcast
on BBC Radio 4 Extra in February 2023.
TV adaptations
================
In 1964, a French film production crew made a 13-part serial of 'The
Adventures of Robinson Crusoe'. It starred Robert Hoffmann. The
black-and-white series was dubbed into English and German. In the UK,
the BBC broadcast it on numerous occasions between 1965 and 1977.
The 2008-2009 'Crusoe' TV series was a 13-part show created by Stephen
Gallagher.
Two 2000s reality television series, 'Expedition Robinson' and
'Survivor', have their contestants try to survive on an isolated
location, usually an island. The concept is influenced by 'Robinson
Crusoe'.
Editions
======================================================================
* 'The life and strange surprizing adventures of Robinson Crusoe: of
York, mariner: who lived twenty eight years all alone in an
un-inhabited island on the coast of America, near the mouth of the
great river of Oroonoque; ... Written by himself.', Early English
Books Online, 1719.
* 'Robinson Crusoe', Oneworld Classics 2008.
* 'Robinson Crusoe', Penguin Classics 2003.
* 'Robinson Crusoe', Oxford World's Classics 2007.
* 'Robinson Crusoe', Bantam Classics
* Defoe, Daniel 'Robinson Crusoe', edited by Michael Shinagel (New
York: Norton, 1994), . Includes a selection of critical essays.
* Defoe, Daniel. 'Robinson Crusoe'. Dover Publications, 1998.
* 'Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' Rand McNally & Company.
The Windermere Series 1916. No ISBN. Includes 7 illustrations by Milo
Winter
See also
======================================================================
* Cannibalism in literature
In real life
==============
* Alexander Selkirk
* Crusoe Cave
* Leendert Hasenbosch
* Philip Ashton
Novels
========
* 'The Swiss Family Robinson'
Television and films
======================
* 'Cast Away'
* 'Crusoe'
* 'Gilligan's Island'
* 'Lost'
* 'Miss Robinson Crusoe'
* 'Robby'
* 'Seven Sea Pirates'
Additional references
======================================================================
*
*
* Malabou, Catherine. "To Quarantine from Quarantine: Rousseau,
Robinson Crusoe, and 'I.'" Critical Inquiry, vol. 47, no. S2, 2021,
https://doi.org/10.1086/711426.[
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/711426#]
*
* Ross, Angus, ed. (1965), 'Robinson Crusoe'. Penguin.
* Secord, Arthur Wellesley (1963). 'Studies in the Narrative Method of
Defoe'. New York: Russell & Russell. (First published in 1924.)
* Shinagel, Michael, ed. (1994). 'Robinson Crusoe'. Norton Critical
Edition. . Includes textual annotations, contemporary and modern
criticisms, bibliography.
* Severin, Tim (2002). 'In search of Robinson Crusoe', New York: Basic
Books.
*
* Shinagel, Michael, ed. (1994), 'Robinson Crusoe'. Norton Critical
Edition (). By Kogul, Mariapan.
Literary criticism
====================
* Backscheider, Paula 'Daniel Defoe: His Life' (Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1989). .
* Ewers, Chris 'Mobility in the English Novel from Defoe to Austen'.
(Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2018). . Includes a chapter on
'Robinson Crusoe'.
* Richetti, John (ed.) 'The Cambridge Companion to Daniel Defoe'.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009) . Casebook of critical
essays.
* Rogers, Pat 'Robinson Crusoe' (London: Allen and Unwin, 1979). .
* Watt, Ian 'The Rise of the Novel' (London: Pimlico, 2000). .
External links
======================================================================
*
* [
http://www.pierre-marteau.com/editions/1719-robinson-crusoe.html
'Robinson Crusoe'] at 'Editions Marteau' (annotated text of the first
edition)
*
* [
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6936/6936-h/6936-h.htm 'Robinson
Crusoe in Words of One Syllable'] by Mary Godolphin (1723-1764),
hosted at Project Gutenberg
* [
http://ufdc.ufl.edu/defoe "Robinson Crusoe & the
Robinsonades"], a free online collection of editions of 'Robinson
Crusoe' from the Baldwin Library of Historical Children's Literature
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe
