3 Review(s)

The Life & Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is the definitive castaway novel by Daniel Defoe. Summary of the Book Robinson Crusoe’s voyage was doomed to begin with. His parents had never wanted him to set off from the Queen's Dock in Hull on a sea voyage in August 1651. They hoped he’d see sense. He didn’t, shrugging off a career in law for adventure and the call of the Sea. The Sea, however, is a harsh mistress and soon Crusoe’s ship is wrecked in a storm. He is undeterred and returns again and again, until he is finally stranded on an island. He begins making his way on the island, assuming that he is alone. He is not. His companions are savage cannibals, and he needs to stay away from them to stay alive. When he spots two prisoners among them, he helps one in his attempts to escape, naming him Friday. In doing so he forges the most singular friendship to have ever been portrayed in all of fiction everywhere: that of the white man and the black savage, a friendship that will go down in history as that of Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday. Their story spans the years they spend on the island and their eventual journey out of it. If, of course, they can escape the cannibals and their macabre appetite. About Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe was an English writer, trader, journalist, spy and pamphleteer. He is considered to have pioneered the English novel writing form, and wrote over 500 books. Defoe based his story of Robinson Crusoe on the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years stranded on the island of Juan Fernandez. Robinson Crusoe was adapted into several major motion pictures, most notably by Rod Hardy and George T. Miller, starring Pierce Brosnan.