The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe of York recounts his own life, beginning with his birth in 1632 to a merchant father of Bremen origin and an English mother from the Robinson family, and describes his restless refusal to heed his father's advice to settle into the "middle station of life" and a career in law. Against his parents' wishes, he sails from Hull in 1651, is nearly drowned in his first storm, ignores the omen, and after a second near-disaster resolves to abandon seafaring but is shamed out of returning home. He sails instead to London and then on a profitable trading voyage to Guinea with a kindly captain, gaining seamanship and £300 in gold dust. A second voyage ends in disaster when Turkish pirates from Sallee capture his ship and enslave him. After two years in bondage he escapes by boat with a Moorish boy, Xury, sailing down the African coast, trading with natives, killing a lion and a leopard, and is finally rescued by a Portuguese ship, whose captain treats him with great generosity, buying his boat and, reluctantly, taking Xury into service under a promise of eventual freedom. Landing in Brazil, Crusoe sets himself up as a tobacco and sugar planter with the captain's help and prospers modestly over several years, regretting only his impulsive parting with Xury. Restless again, he agrees to join a voyage to Guinea to illegally buy slaves for himself and neighboring planters, sailing from Brazil on 1 September 1659. The ship is wrecked in a hurricane off an unknown coast; Crusoe alone survives, swimming ashore to a desolate island. He salvages tools, weapons, food, and other supplies from the grounded wreck over many trips before it finally breaks apart and sinks. He builds a fortified tent and cave dwelling, keeps a journal, hunts goats and fowl, and battles despair, illness (a violent ague, during which he has a terrifying dream and turns to prayer and Bible-reading), and a serious earthquake that forces him to reconsider his shelter. He discovers volunteer stalks of barley and rice grown from spilled seed, begins cultivating grain through trial and error, learns to make pottery, bake bread, and fashion tools without proper materials, and domesticates a dog, cats, a parrot named Poll, and eventually goats. Reflecting on his suffering, he undergoes a religious conversion, coming to see his isolation as divine providence and finding contentment and spiritual comfort he had never known before. He explores the island, discovering its fertile valleys, wildlife, and a distant coastline he believes belongs to the American mainland, and by the end of his third year has established a settled, self-sufficient, though solitary, existence.

By Daniel Defoe · First published 1719 · Genre: Adventure Fiction, Survival Stories, Travel Literature · 20 chapters · 138,192 words

First lines

I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called-nay we call ourselves and write our name-Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.

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The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is listed on Textopian as a novel by Daniel Defoe, dated 1719 CE.

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survival · island · adventure · shipwreck · exploration · self-reliance · loneliness · resilience · nature · colonialism · human spirit · resourcefulness

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