Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe

Frankenstein‘s Monster, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dracula, Tarzan, Robinson Crusoe et al have left the confines of the book covers and become icons of our cultural heritage. Robinson Crusoe is the most successful of the lot, I‘ve read that the novel is more widespread than the bible, it has been translated into 110 (!) languages. I know that you know the basic facts of the story and that there isn‘t the danger of my spoiling the plot for you - after all the novel is told in the first person and only a survivor can tell it - but have you actually read the original? The nearest I ever got was an abridged and simplified (language-wise) version for pupils, I‘ve ...

In recent times, this classic children's text has been reconsidered in some surprising ways. I first read Robinson Crusoe when I was about ten (Understanding not all of it.)and re read it several years ago as part of my English literature degree. From my childhood, I remember a fairly harmles story about a bloks stuck on an island rearing goats, growing corn and trying to make pots. Oh, and there was man Friday. These days, Robinson Crusoe is regarded by academics as being a book about colonialism. After all, we have one English man becoming King of an island (which is clearly home to some other people.) Crusoe's treatment of Man Friday is ...

We all know the story of Robinson Crusoe - but have you actually read it? I read it for the first time in my life this year. I was astonished. The underlying idea, of survival against all the odds, is strong enough to motivate a fair number of spin-offs (Defoe wrote a couple himself), and even Desert Island Discs. When you consider that it is claimed by some as one of the first novels to be written in the English language and that it is nearly 300 years old, it is astonishingly fresh. The fact that I knew its story - even only in sketchy outline - did not at all detract from its power over me. I found myself quite gripped by Crusoe's heroic ...