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Robinson Crusoe (Norton Critical Editions)

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Defoe helped to define the modern fictional novel when he wrote about the tales of Robinson Crusoe. The book has a strong religious theme, as was Defoe's intention. However, this version of the text censors out some of the language against what Defoe called the Papist Church (or the Roman Catholic Church) as well as some items which would be considered racially insensitive today (but leaving in much of it as well). I don't understand why this version leaves out some of those parts, as they completely change the story that Defoe intended. I'm not sure that Amazon knows these texts are censored (not the original) as there is no allusion to it in the book's description.

The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808)

The author of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe, is generally credited with being one of the first novel writers in the English language. The book is surely an influential one-- spawning countless imitations, derivations, and (in our era) reality-based television shows.

It is billed, quite fairly, as an adventure story. However, it is a very different kind of adventure than the modern action-sequence laden book which readers today may expect. It is an adventure story, but one which centers primarily on mastery and morality.

The morality is placed centrally in the book when Crusoe rejects the advice of his father to accept the happiness of the middle class life to which he was born. Against the wishes of his family, he runs off to sea to find adventure. It is not until Crusoe literally recreates a primitive approximation of that middle class life for himself on his island that he is freed.

Crusoe is also a story about the ability of mankind to master his surroundings through hard work, patience, and Christianity. The combination of these three supports are what allow him to escape captivity in Africa, overcome the deadly obstacles on the island, and finally leave the island itself. His physical prowess and combat skills are significantly less important to his journey than the message of trust and persistance that the decades he spends on the island convey. While this message might need tempering for the modern reader, it is also inspirational and important to read.

If the potential reader is not used to the diction of the time, the book itself may take some patience and persistance. It pays off, in the end, and should be an excellent book for the young teenager (or the not-so-young grown-up) interested in stories of adventure. The child who reads and enjoys My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George would probably be a good potential audience for Robinson Crusoe. For a good life-at-sea duo, you might consider pairing it with Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana.

After reading Glyn Williams' trenchant 'The Prize Of All The Oceans' I had an overwhelming desire to read this classic once again. I first read it when I was a mere 10 year old and it completely mesmerized me; I find that it still held the same power over me thirty years later. It is difficult to put this tale down once the title character becomes a castaway on the "island of despair" (as Crusoe refers to it) and he begins the battle against the odds to survive. Facing extreme tropical heat, torrential storms, a dreadful loneliness and the struggle to master some of the simplest of skills we take for granted Crusoe wages his one-man crusade for survival. Beginning his desolate existence steeped in woeful self-pity he slowly realizes through a series of trying circumstances, devotional reading of the Bible and finally relief from his isolated state that the experience proves to be one of reverie. In the process Crusoe becomes quite possibly the most inspirational figure to spring forth from the pages of literature.

Though it is annually listed by literature scholars as one of the 100 finest works of fiction, today primarily adolescents read Defoe's enduring tale as part of their required reading for school; very few others rarely bother with this nearly three century old tale. 'Robinson Crusoe' it seems is a classic awaiting a renaissance of rediscovery by adults who regularly read for either leisure or as a part of continuing education. While the novel's approach to morality may seem a bit old fashioned by today's contemporary standards, the character's awakening to wisdom, inner strength and faith will inspire any reader of any age. Crusoe's ability to steel himself against the onslaught of natural elements, his own self doubts and finally a band of savages who discover his "island empire" should win over even the most jaded of us. This Norton Critical Edition is the perfect package to gain a deep appreciation for this masterpiece of the English language. So do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book today and transport yourself back to your youth and also to a time long past. It's a journey you won't regret taking.

With Norton Critical Editions readers get the text of the novel and historical and contemporary essays in criticism. The ones in this version are some of the best Norton has ever compiled.

Both the historical and contemporary essays provide a compelling aesthetic case for why this novel is not merely a book for boys but one of the best English novels ever written. Thus, these essays not only highlight aspects of your reading you may or may not have noted but present a case for Defoe's skill as a writer.

A very short essay not to missed is the one by Defoe himself on solitude. It gives one pause.

As a boy growing up in 17th Century England, all Robinson Crusoe wanted to do was be a sailor. His parents tried to dissuade him -- it was a dangerous occupation, and certainly a middle class child like him could find a calling much safer and more comfortable. Naturally, he didn't listen, and essentially ran away from home, finding opportunities to sail on a few ships and encountering a few dangers until he finally reached Brazil, bought a plantation, and looked forward to that comfortable life of prosperity his parents said would be his if he'd only use his head.

But Crusoe is one to push fate. He embarks on a ship bound for Africa to collect slaves, and during a storm in the Caribbean Sea, the ship is wrecked and the crew drowned except for Crusoe, who manages to swim to the shore of a deserted island. Unable to get back to civilization, he salvages as many goods as he can from the wrecked ship and resolves to survive as long as possible in this new, unwelcome habitat.

Crusoe's resourcefulness is astounding. He builds a sophisticated hut/tent/cave complex to live in, hunts goats and fowl, harvests fruit, and figures out how to grow barley, rice, and corn, bake bread, and make earthenware vessels. After living this way for nearly two peaceful decades, Crusoe discovers that savages from a distant island are using his island for their cannibal feasts. He manages to save the life of one of their potential victims, a savage he names Friday, who becomes his faithful servant. With Friday's help, Crusoe realizes he now has a chance to escape the island once and for all and get back to civilization, although his plans don't proceed quite as he envisioned them.

"Robinson Crusoe" is a neatly woven adventure yarn, but under the surface there are several themes. The most apparent is that the novel seems like a morality tale -- i.e., hard work and faith in God will see you through bad times; virtue is rewarded and arrogance is punished. Another theme is that although nature can be a cruel foe, man is better off learning to work in harmony with it than struggling against it. Most interesting to me, though, is that reading about Crusoe's self-education in the art of survival is like witnessing the anthropological process of how civilization developed from savagery.

Unfortunately, this book suffered the fate of many other masterpieces: be classified in the "children" bookshelf. That guarantees most editions will be abridged, censored, and forgotten, since kids today read very little and waste their time playing with horrendous japanese toys. Enough lecturing. This is a book about a man who, yes, goes through many adventures, and in the way finds himself. This is not the story of a man who goes through pleasant experiences, enjoying adventure. He suffers very much finding himself alone for many years, having to survive by himself in the midst of a desert island. The book is narrated in the first person, so it's a long monologue by a truly lonely man. His reflections are deep and moving. It's good that this is a complete and unabridged edition, since the first part is usually severed from the rest, which is a pity because it puts the whole story in context. This is a fun but also an interesting reading.

This seventeenth century classic chronicles the story of Robinson Crusoe, an Englishman who leaves his family for a sea career. Shipwrecked and abandoned on a tropical island, Crusoe must find a way to survive. During his castaway adventures, Crusoe wrestles with God's fate and is challenged to answer the haunting question: is there somebody else on the island, or is he just going crazy?

Despite the exciting premise, Robinson Crusoe is not really an 'exciting' novel. Indeed, each chapter title gives away the chapters' events. Moreover, Crusoe, who narrates his journey, is more concerned with describing the shape of the tiger's teeth, the nature of his growl, and various other details instead of building up any excitement about the encounter. Crusoe takes great pains describing how he counted all his objects and divided them up into equal segments.

Another theme about the book is Crusoe's preoccupation with mastery. Crusoe is determined to dominate everything he comes in contact with. In fact, when teaching Friday English, he teaches him to call him "Master" before teaching him "yes" and "no." In fact, Crusoe never refers to any other character by their name--very odd.

Despite these peculiarities, Daniel Defoe has created a wonderful story and portrayed it with utmost detail. Defoe really thought about every aspect of human survival, and provides an uncanny amount of realism. If you like adventures, and don't mind long descriptions, then this book is perfect.

In the literary world it is perhaps blasphemy to say a bad word against Daniel Defoe's most acclaimed novel. So here goes. The fact that the book was originally titled The Life And Strange Surprising Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe illustrates the major flaw in Defoe's literary form. Put simply, this would be a far more interesting and gripping story were it not so superfluously lengthy. The author makes a habit of repeating himself, especially when it comes to the act of dispatching kittens, which seems to be more of an obsession here than octogenarian ladies are to MatronsApron. It is difficult, you may think, to keep the subject matter fresh when describing the daily tribulations of a fellow stranded on an island for thirty years, without occasionally repeating yourself. True, but perhaps a straightforward solution to this diminutive quandary would be to simply truncate the duration of the story. There are some wonderfully intriguing and suspenseful moments, and some juicy action to boot, but sadly these are gratuitously diluted by lengthy descriptions of the unremarkable everyday goings on in Crusoe's life, and rather than serving to build up the suspense, they merely obstruct the reader's relationship with the more exciting parts of the story.
However, those with more patience than my ignorant self will find in Robinson Crusoe a delightful tale, which as well as being a fictional documentary of the most unusual thirty years of Mr. Crusoe's life, also has time to ponder upon philosophical and theological ideas, in a style that makes the reader feel as if they are involved in the conflicts between the functionalist and cynical thoughts going on in Crusoe's mind. It may not be a gripping white-knuckle adventure, being rather more leisurely and acquiescent, but it is still rather easy to see why Robinson Crusoe is regarded by some as one of the greatest novels of all time.

I really didn't know the details of Robinson Crusoe besides the cartoon image of him lounging in his hammock on a deserted island, with his long shaggy beard and conical fur cap. Oh, and he had a man named Friday who helped him. So what does one do for nearly thirty years on a mostly deserted tropical island? Apparently grow corn, raise goats and spend a whole lot of time building a wall.

The book dates all the way back to 1719 and as such the writing tends to be rather stiff and formal. It's mostly a very detailed accounting of Crusoe's daily existence following a shipwreck on a small tropical island. There are two main themes to the story besides the marooning. The first is the classic situation of the white Englishman, thrust into a strange situation, mastering his environment while keeping a stiff upper lip. Crusoe was sort of a precursor to Tarzan. The second theme is Crusoe's religious conversion. Not that he wasn't Christian to begin with but throughout the book he seeks comfort in the Christian God and grows more devout. You cannot simply overlook this theme because it's so prevalent that much of the book read like a religious tract. When Crusoe was converting Friday to Christianity I felt like I was being witnessed to by Daniel Defoe.

The character of Robinson Crusoe is clearly a product of his time. After years of living alone, his island starts to become a stopping point for some natives visiting on canoes. The problem is they're cannibals who happen to be using Crusoe's island as a dining location. Despite being terrified of being discovered, Crusoe toys with the idea of slaughtering all the natives but wonders whether or not this act would be consistent with his Christians beliefs. His second idea is to separate a couple of the natives from the rest and capture them as slaves. This didn't seem to conflict with his Christian beliefs. Now in defense of the writer slavery didn't end in England until 1772 but Robinson Crusoe seems particularly keen on dominating people around him. After Crusoe saves Friday from becoming the natives Friday special he instructs him to address Crusoe as `master'. Later, after Crusoe and Friday save a Spaniard (along with Friday's father) who was in dire peril of being consumed, Crusoe ponders his growing kingdom and considers the other residents of the island his subjects. He even insists that the Spaniard express fealty towards him. Others arrive on the island and each time Robinson Crusoe has them agree to be forever subservient to him.

So what do you say about a book with stiff writing, some dubious ethics (Crusoe and Friday do eventually kill over a dozen natives) and a weak ending? I tend to hold classics to a higher standard and this one didn't live up to my expectations. On the other hand this book is going on 300 years old and it's probably unfair to judge it too harshly. I would consider Robinson Crusoe more of a groundbreaker than a literary masterpiece. I think for me the hardest part was that the book actually grew weaker the further I read until the ending which felt really tacked on. Daniel Defoe clearly doesn't follow the traditional rules of writing but then again that might be because he wrote before many of the rules of novel writing even existed.

In Robinson Crusoe a man is ship wrecked on a remote islands and must survive the wilderness. In the beginning of this book Robinson wants to travel at sea but his father strongly advises against it . Eventually Robinson disobeys his father and becomes a merchant at sea. On his second trip his ship is boarded by pirates and he is imprisoned eventually he escapes and heads back to brazil. Soon he decides to gather slaves in west Africa but ship wrecks on a remote island. At first he builds a shelter by the shore. Robinson soon became ill and thought he saw an angel that told him to repent. He then decided to explore the island and see what he could find. He came upon a valley with plenty of grapes to eat. Later he saw cannibals with a victim, he helped the victim escape and named him Friday. Eventually he got a boat from Spaniards and returned home. He got married but his wife died soon after. The was a very interesting book and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

In this book there was always something happening. In the very beginning he was attacked by pirates, then later he was fighting of dangerous cannibals. It was interesting but this made the story very hard to follow and I just read the 250 page condensed version.

Robinson Crusoe changed a lot over the span of the book. At first he thought he was destined to live at sea but at the end of the book he would much rather just walk. Also when he first crashed on the island he hated being there but soon he came to love his shelter but when he had a chance to leave he fainted.

When anything good happened to Robinson Crusoe something bad was just around the corner. When he was just becoming a success he was shipwrecked on an island. And finally when he gets home he finds that all of his family except for two sisters are dead.

This was a very thrilling and interesting man versus wilderness book. It was hard to follow due to all the information. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone.