The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe

About the book

Robinson Crusoe pursues a life at sea against family advice, only to find that adventure can become prolonged isolation. After a shipwreck leaves him on an island, tools, shelter, food, and the measurement of time acquire an importance they never had at home. Defoe makes practical labour central to the narrative, recording experiments, setbacks, calculations, and the gradual construction of a habitable routine. Crusoe also reads his experiences through religious reflection and assumptions about ownership and authority. Encounters with others complicate the apparent independence he has built. The book offers the absorbing detail of survival while inviting attention to the beliefs its narrator carries into an unfamiliar place. Resourcefulness and the desire for mastery repeatedly appear as closely connected parts of his character.

• Survival and labour
• Isolation
• Ownership and authority

Why read it

For the detailed process of making a life from limited resources and the revealing voice that records it.

English text