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Loading... Robinson Crusoe. Everyman's Library No. 59 (original 1719; edition 1949)by Daniel Defoe
Work InformationRobinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (1719)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Sure to offend those who insist on applying 21st century mores to a novel published in 1719, but for the rest of us it is a rip-roaring good adventure and an interesting glimpse into the 18th century worldview. Nice illustrations too. ( ) I think this is worth reading as a cultural artifact. Crusoe careened around the Atlantic enslaving people, and was then terrified of how he might be treated if he fell into their hands; his profound religious awakening and intimate relationship with an indigenous person (whose name he never asks) did not lead to any change in his views; his highest achievement as a person once enslaved himself was to become the feudal lord of a colony half-populated by more kidnapped and enslaved people. Crusoe is just face-meltingly abhorrent, and by the end I'd convinced myself that it was a satire of the English mindset of the time... Maybe it wasn't then, but it is now. I liked the parts about danger and setting up systems of food production, though.
“Robinson Crusoe,” though, remains something truly special: It belongs in that small category of classics — others are “The Odyssey” and “Don Quixote” — that we feel we’ve read even if we haven’t. Retellings for children and illustrations, like those by N.C. Wyeth, have made its key scenes universally recognizable.... A classic is a book that generations have found worth returning to and arguing with. Vividly written, replete with paradoxes and troubling cultural attitudes, revealing a deep strain of supernaturalism beneath its realist surface, “Robinson Crusoe” is just such a classic and far more than a simple adventure story for kids. A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of Robinson read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat that day, painfully learned to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, and with entire delight, read Robinson... It was the scene of Crusoe at the wreck, if I remember rightly, that so bewitched my blacksmith. Nor is the fact surprising. Every single article the castaway recovers from the hulk is “a joy for ever” to the man who reads of them. They are the things that should be found, and the bare enumeration stirs the blood. Crusoe has been called a kind of Protestant monk, and it is true that he turns the chance of his isolation into an anchorite’s career. The story is one of spiritual realization — almost half a lifetime spent on contemplation works profound changes, whatever the subject’s religion. We can watch Crusoe become, year by year, a better, wiser man... Robinson Crusoe may still be the greatest English novel. Surely it is written with a mastery that has never been surpassed. It is not only as convincing as real life. It is as deep and as superficial as direct experience itself. Belongs to SeriesBelongs to Publisher Series — 64 more Blau (15) Corticelli [Mursia] (62) Dean's Classics (31) Ediciones de bolsillo (366) Everyman's Library (59) insel taschenbuch (0041) Limited Editions Club (S:1.11) Little Blue Books (559) Oxford English Novels (1719) Penguin Clothbound Classics (2013) Penguin English Library, 2012 series (2012-12) The Pocket Library (PL-510) Reader's Enrichment Series (RE 112) Tus Libros. Anaya (22) Whitman Classics (2124) The World's Classics (17) Библиотека приключений (I, 1) Is contained inGrote avonturen drieling. Gullivers reizen / Robinson Crusoe / Michael Strogoff, de koerier van de tsaar. by Henk Cornelissen Lincoln's Log Cabin Library: Lincoln's Fireside Reading: The Books That Made the Man...the Bible; Pilgrim's Progress; Robinson Crusoe; Aesop's Fables; Life of Washington by H. Jack Lang Is retold inFoe by J. M. Coetzee Has the (non-series) sequelHas the adaptationIs abridged inInspiredHas as a studyTwentieth Century Interpretations of Robinson Crusoe; A Collection of Critical Essays: A Collection of Critical Essays by Frank H. Ellis Has as a commentary on the textHas as a student's study guideAwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
Classic Literature.
Fiction.
HTML: Robinson Crusoe is the fictional autobiography of the title character. As a young man, Crusoe sets out from England on a disastrous sea voyage. His passion for seafaring remains undiminished and so he sets out again, only to be shipwrecked a third time. His journey takes him to Brazil where he becomes a plantation owner. A third and final shipwrecking, however, leaves him stranded for 28 years on a remote island. There he becomes a devout Christian and believes his life lacks nothing but society. The work is sometimes credited with being the first English novel. .No library descriptions found.
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.5Literature English & Old English literatures English fiction Queen Anne 1702-45LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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