Daniel Defoe and His Novel Robinson Crusoe

MINISTRY OF HIGHER AND SECONDARY SPECIAL EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN

GULISTAN STATE UNIVERSITY

The English and Literature department

Khusainova Ilvina’s qualification work on speciality 5220100, English philology on the theme:

Daniel Defoe and his Novel “Robinson

Crusoe”

Supervisor: Ten E. V.

Gulistan-2006

Contents:

I. Introduction:

1.1 Some words about Daniel Defoe’s literary activity

1.2 Daniel Defoe and his novel “Robinson Crusoe”

II. The main part.

2.1 Daniel Defoe and his personality.

2.2 The source of the “Robinson Crusoe’s Adventures”

2.3 Robinson Crusoe’s way to Russia to Uzbekistan

2.4 Robinson Crusoe and his character

2.5 Some words about translation of the novel

III. Conclusion

3.1 The English literature in teaching English

IV. Bibliography

V. Appendix

Introduction

This graduation qualification work is dedicated to the study of Daniel Defoe’s world famous novel “Robinson Crusoe”. The theme is very interesting and is worth of paying special attention. Uzbek readers enjoy reading the novel immensely. The book is rightly included to the list of masterpieces even created by Daniel Defoe. The author’s work is estimated and read both by grown ups and children. Daniel Defoe founder of the early bourgeois realistic novel and he was the first and fore most a journalist, and in many ways the father of modern English periodicals.

Here we read one more fact: “The review” which he founded in 1704 and conducted until 1713, is regarded as the first English newspaper. It paved the way for the magazines “The Tattler” and “The spectator” Daniel Defoe was born in London in a family of non-conformists =сектанты= диссиденты= (those who refuse to accept the doctrines of an established or national Church, especially those protestants who form the Church of England.

The tasks we put before us in our graduation qualification work are:

1. To consider Daniel Defoe as the founder of realistic novel.

2. To show how contradictory was his worldview. He was not stable in his political attitudes towards the parties and the government of his time.

3. The impetus and the reason, also the origin the source of Robinson’s plot.

4. We think that Daniel Defoe and his work came to Uzbekistan and Russia and Robinson became famous thanks to creative activity of the Russian translators.

All above mentioned matters are discussed in the Introduction and Chapter One. The next Chapter- Chapter Two is devoted to the description of the main hero’s character. The whole paper is mainly about the merits of the writer and Robinson’s history.

5. We also paid great attention to the Russian and Uzbek translations of

“Robinson Crusoe’s Adventures”

6. We think that it is necessary to stress the educative significance of the events.

In the conclusion we wanted to shame the real place of the novel for our future generation.

Daniel Defoe and his novel “Robinson Crusoe”

Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe” (1719) is the first true novel. It demands special and deep study. To study the novel we should commence with our thoughts about English enlightenment. As one of the prominent literary figure of the XVIII century England Daniel Defoe is the founder of the European realistic novel of the new time. This book is rightly included to the circle of the beloved works of the children, so its educational significance should be underlined especially. We have to use the history of English enlighteners in connection with Defoe’s literary activity. we may mention that the English Enlightenment is closely connected with the German Enlightenment use may match mainly the ideas of Enlightenment in Goethe’s work. Daniel Defoe was the son of his time, and of his class, it means that he expressed the ideas of the existing classes. He may be described as a bearer of the world view of the their progressive people’s ideas.

The work of the earlier novelists of the eighteenth century has a drive and coherence from their excitements realizing congenial possibilities of the new species of writing. They were pioneers in the novels of Defoe, H. Fielding and Sterna the tastes and sensibility of their authors are everywhere pelted.

Defoe and Richardson are the first great writers in the English literature, in this they differ from Jeffrey, Chancer, Edmund, Spencer, William Shakespeare and John Milton.

The history of Robinson’s life on the island is a story about creative work of a man, about his courage, his will, creative searching. This is a hymn to labor the source of life. Thanks to his creative work Robinson Crusoe remained a man. This is most remarkable and educative significance of the novel. The novel joined the elements of biographical documentary and adventure novel. The theme of creative labor should be emphasized especially Labor helped Robinson to stay a man in inhuman conditions of his life many years lonely in an island. There are very few selected books which can complete with this world known novel.

Daniel Defoe is not only the author of “ Robinson Crusoe” he is the author of, as his researchers consider, about four hundred separately published works, polemic and publicist articles, pamphlets and so on. Which had been published by him in different editions. Creative energy of Defoe was extraordinary and almost unique for his country and his time, his people.

Daniel Defoe had various hardships but he could fight for survival with astonishing steadfastness staunchness. Defoe could become one of first English professional journalists, editors of influential political newspapers and even private secret of very high ranking persons. Very important Person (Vips) of the government. But in a situation of complex and severe social and political fight he could not fairly well to do and even quite existing for himself. Political Discords strafes pains (низо, шифок,) and court intrigues brought him to the prison and to a Pillory. But in spite of all these. Defoe continued to write and publish books, booklets, and articles about everything which seemed to him worth of informing his contemporaries.

During more than three years Defoe openly, anonymously and under other pennames published pamphlets on very sharp political and international problems. He also wrote philosophical and law treatises, economical works, hand books, guides, manuals (йул – йурик дастурланаллар, кулланмалар) for traders, advices for those who were going to get married, all kinds of advices how to behave oneself in the society a poem about painting, general history of handicraft trades, and so on and so forth. Daniel Defoe used to say that he was thirty times rich and poor.

The huge library of written and used by him works wonder us not only with their great member, but also with quantity of names, as well as with their belongings to different fields of life and knowledge, which his creative curious thoughts and ideas none of those works were published under his own name.

Defoe published them giving the authorship to the heroes, Rescuing his books for real manuscripts or diaries, written in the name of the first person. These were the writings of sailors and merchants, thieves and court intricate plotters and all types of adventurers. This feat was the reason for not considering Daniel Defoe as their author, even two centuries later.

The works of fiction, newer appear abruptly. Most of them are closely connected with the time of their creation, so this is true concerning “Robinson Crusoe” as well.

Daniel Defoe and his personality

(1660-1731) Daniel Defoe is famous was an English novelist, journalist and pamphleteer, famous for "Robinson Crusoe," "Moll Flanders," "Memoirs of a Cavalier," and many other works. He was one of the founders of the English novel. Read more about the life and works of Daniel Defoe.

1) Daniel Defoe: Master of Fictions: His Life and Ideas

by Macmillan E. Novak. Oxford University Press. From the publisher: "Novak illuminates such works as Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, novels that changed the course of fiction in their time and have remained towering classics to this day. And he reveals a writer who was a superb observer of his times—an age of dramatic historical, Daniel Defoe is perhaps best known for his novels, Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders, but he was also the quintessential "brilliant scoundrel" of the Augustan Age. In rough chronological order, Daniel Defoe was a hosier, soldier, wine merchant, factory owner, bankrupt, spy, pamphleteer, and convict, journalist, editor, political flunkey, hack writer and novelist.

In 1704, he launched the Review of the Affairs of France and of all Europe, one of the first serious political and economic newspapers in England (it folded in the aftermath of the 1712 Stamp Act). He served as editor on several other newspapers later. As a trader and nonconformist, Defoe's produced several political and social commentaries hailing the dawn of the bourgeois-capitalist age.

In the service of Robert Harley, a shadowy figure of Queen Anne's reign, Defoe's produced a detailed three-volume (1724-27) account of the economic, political and social conditions of the cities and country-sides of Great Britain. His talent was dissipated in later years when, as a political journalist, he compromised his independence as a reporter in return for political favors.

Born Daniel Foe, the son of James Foe, a butcher in Stoke Newington, London He later added the aristocratic sounding "De" to his name as a nom de plume. He became a famous pamphleteer, journalist and novelist at a time of the birth of the novel in the English language, and thus fairly ranks as one of its progenitors.

Defoe's pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on July 31, 1703. Principally on account of a pamphlet entitled "The Shortest Way with Dissenters", in which he ruthlessly satirized the High church Tories, purporting to argue for the extermination of dissenters. The publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory, however, caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects, and to drink to his health.

After his three days in the pillory Defoe went into Negate Prison. Robert Harley. 1st Earl of Oxford and Mortimer brokered his release in exchange for Defoe's co-operation as an intelligence agent. He set up his periodical A Review of the Affairs of France in 1704, supporting the Harley ministry. The Review ran without interruption until 1713. When Harley lost power in 1708 Defoe continued writing it to support Go dolphin, then again to support Harley and the Tories in the Tory ministry of 1710 to 1114. After the Tories fell from power with the death of Queen Anne. Defoe continued doing intelligence work for the Whig government.

Defoe's famous novel Robinson Crusoe (1719), tells of a man's shipwreck on a desert island and his subsequent adventures. The author may have based his narrative on the true story of the shipwreck of Alexander Selkirk. (Sec Robinson Crusoe: Selkirk as the inspiration for Crusoe).

Defoe's next novel was Captain Singleton ( 720), amazing for its portrayal of the redemptive power of one man's love for another. Hans Turley has recently shown how Quaker William's love turns Captain Singleton away from the murderous life of a pirate, and the two make a solemn vow to live as a male couple happily ever after in London, disguised as Greeks and never speaking English in public, with Singleton married to William's sister as a ruse.

Defoe wrote an account of the Great Plague of 1665: A Journal of the Plague Year.

He also wrote Moll Flanders (1722), a picaresque first-person narration of the fall and eventual redemption of a lone woman in 17th century England. She appears as a whore, bigamist and thief, lives in The Mint, commits adultery and incest, yet manages to keep the reader's sympathy. This work and Roxana, The Fortunate Mistress (1724) offer remarkable examples of the way in which Defoe seems to inhabit his fictional (yet "drawn from life") characters, not least in that they are women.

Daniel Defoe died on April 21. 1731 and was interred in Bun hill Fields. London. (edit) Defoe and the Anglo-Scottish Union of 1707

No fewer than 545 titles, ranging from satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets and volumes have been ascribed to Defoe. His ambitious business ventures saw him bankrupt by 1692, with a wife and seven children to support. In 1703 he published an ironic attack on the high Tories, and was prosecuted for seditious libel, sentenced to be pilloried, fined 200 marks, and be detained at the Queen's pleasure. In despair he wrote to William Paterson. the London Scot, and founder of the Bank of England and part instigator of the Darien Disaster, who was in the confidence of Robert Hartley, leading Minister and spymaster in the English Government. Hartley accepted Defoe's services and released him in 1703. He immediately published The Review, which appeared weekly, then three times a week, written mostly by himself. This was the main mouthpiece of the Government promoting the Act of Union 1707.(1)

Defoe began his campaign in The Review and other pamphlets aimed at English opinion, claiming correctly that it would end the threat from the North, gaining for the Treasury an "inexhaustible treasury of men" a valuable new market increasing the power of England. By September 1706 Hartley ordered Defoe to Edinburgh as a secret agent, to do everything possible to help secure acquiescence of the Treaty. He was very conscious of the risk to himself Thanks to books such The Letters of Daniel Defoe, (edited by GH Healey, Oxford 1955) which are readily far more is known about his activities than is usual with such agents.

His first reports were of vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against the Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind," he reported. Years later John Clerk of Penacook, a leading Unionist, wrote in his memories that,

"He was a spy among us, but not known as such, otherwise the Mob of Edinburgh would pull him to pieces."

Defoe being a Presbyterian, who suffered in England for his convictions, was accepted as an adviser to the Assembly of the Church and Parliamentary Committees. He told Hartley that he was "privy to all their folly", but "Perfectly unsuspected as with corresponding with anybody in England." He was then able to influence the proposals that were put to Parliament and reported back: "Having had the honor to be always sent for the committee to whom these amendments were referred, I have had the good fortune to break their measures in two particulars via the bounty on Corn and proportion of the Excise."

Yet Defoe was also a devout Presbyterian, faithful husband, doting father, and genius of the first order, a man who invented both modern journalism and the modern novel in his furious forty-year career. His greatest achievement, Robinson Crusoe, is a masterpiece of religious prose that has appeared in over 1,200 editions in English alone, has been translated into almost every known language, and continues to instruct delighted readers, as it has for nearly three hundred years, on the basics of Christian civilization by means of one of the most exciting adventure stories ever penned.

How to reconcile the two Defoe’s? This is the mystery that any biographer must confront, and one that Richard West only partially resolves.

The enigma begins with Defoe's birth. We remain uncertain about his year or place of birth, although 1661 in the parish of St. Giles, Cripple gate, seems likely. Raised a Dissenter—a Presbyterian in an Anglican nation—he was barred from Oxford and Cambridge and instead received three years of higher education under the Reverend Charles Morton, a future vice-president of Harvard University who drilled his pupils in science, modern tongues, and the intricacies of English rhetoric. Defoe learned his lessons well. He took away with him a superb prose style and a burning resentment of the upper classes who had denied him entrance to Oxbridge, coupled with a scarcely-disguised just to join their ranks—a blend of envy and hatred common among young middle-class men even today.

As West suggested, this ambivalence toward social betters was one of Defoe's driving obsessions. Another was his terror of debt and his sense of being hounded by creditors, as well as by literary and political opponents. Defoe relished the harsh world of late-seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century business, when capitalism was coming of age; unfortunately, he had an uncanny knack for investing in projects that left him in ruins. He traded in cows, bricks, tobacco, honey, land, diving bells, and even civet cats, almost always for a loss. By his early thirties, Defoe had squandered his wife's considerable dowry, was in debt for 17,000 pounds, and had declared bankruptcy—an act that barred him for life from public service. West describes the aftermath with typical empathy: "The torment of mind he suffered . . . condemned him to a life of misery, fear, loneliness, and remorse, from which he could only escape through prayer, the love of his family, and eventually by writing books."

Defoe responded to the crisis with characteristic ingenuity: He decided to switch careers and become journalist—and not just any journalist. As West enthuses, "He was the first master, if not the inventor, of almost every feature of modern newspapers, including the leading article, investigative reporting, the foreign news analysis, the agony aunt, the gossip column, the candid obituary, and even the kind of soul-searching piece which Fleet Street calls the 'Why, Oh Why."1

This new venture unleashed the best and worst in Defoe. On the one hand, he delighted in subterfuge. He wrote bogus letters to the editor, bogus travelogues, bogus histories; he worked as a journalistic double agent, writing for Tory journals while in the employ of the Whigs; he delighted in printing anti-Catholic drivel (and spent a lifetime seething about "Popish Plots," including, so he thought, the Great London Fire of 1666); he raked up scandal wherever he could, insulting enemies and shocking friends.

On the other hand, he vigorously defended his faith and accepted a prison term as the price of principle. Although it is not always acknowledged by his biographers—West does better here than many—Defoe's professional life focused on the place of religion in personal and public life. All his writings, from novels to marriage manuals, from occult studies to political broadsides, stem from the viewpoint of a devout Dissenter fighting for survival in an Anglican nation. It was for Scotland he used different arguments, even the opposite of those he used in England, for example, usually ignoring the English doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty. Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time. The same is true of a massive history of the Union which Defoe published in 1709 and which some historians still treat as a valuable contemporary source for their own works. Defoe took pains to give his history an air of objectivity by giving some space to arguments against the Union, but always having the last word for himself.

He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Slaton, by just ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton, the official leader of the Squadron Volant against the Union, who finally acted against his comrades in the decisive stages of the debate. Hamilton was to lead an Anti-Union Rebellion of 1708, where Covenanters had marched from Galloway (and were betrayed at Dumfries) to unite with Jacobites at Edinburgh. A Highland Army camped outside Edinburgh were given the keys by the town guard to let them in. The Illustrious Duke failed to turn up, due to a toothache, and the French frigates in the Forth had to turn back.

Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Scottish Parliament which was so vehement for its Independence from 1703 to 1705 became so supine in 1706. He received very little reward from his paymasters and, of course, no recognition for his services by the government. He made use of his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, published in 1726, where he actually admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland, which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union, was "not the case, but rather the contrary."

Defoe's description of Glasgow (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as a Gaelic translation for the town. The Gaelic Glass could mean grey or green, chu means dog or hollow. Glaschu probably actually means 'Green Hollow'. The "Dear Green Place", like much of Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local Tron minister urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God". The 'Dear Green Place' and "City of God" required government troops to put down the rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty, as at almost every merchant cross in Scotland.

When Defoe revisited in the mid 1720's he claimed that the hostility towards his party was, "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against."

Reviewed by Philip Zaleski J the best physical description of Daniel Defoe comes to us, fittingly, from a wanted poster: "a middle sized spare man, about 40 years old, of a brown complexion, and dark brown-colored hair, but wears a wig; a hooked nose, a sharp chin, grey eyes and a large mole near his mouth."

This unappealing description was issued by the Earl of Nottingham in 1702 against "Daniel de Foe, alias Defoe," sought for "high crimes and misdemeanor" for publishing an anonymous parody of Tory religious invective. The poster, and the accusation that spawned it, neatly encapsulate much of Defoe's life: a writer on the lam, a lover of aliases, given to anonymous and pseudonymous productions; a middle-class merchant bewigged to pass as an aristocrat; a literary pugilist who scorned the orthodoxies of the day; a man judged by many of his contemporaries to be a ferret, a sneak, a public menace.

this issue that produced his first best-seller, The True-Born Englishman (1700), a poem of high passion and mordant wit defending the reign of the Protestant King William III. It contains the memorable lines:

Wherever God erects a house of prayer, The Devil always builds a chapel there, And 'twill be found upon examination, The latter has the largest congregation.

Defoe's somewhat paradoxical love for both religious righteousness and literary deceit soon led to his undoing. In 1702 he published The Shortest Way with the Dissenters, the parody that occasioned the wanted poster quoted above, in which he suggested that the best way to handling religious nonconformists was to hang them. At first many Tories missed the joke and welcomed this splendid final solution. When they discovered that it was all a hoax, they went for Defoe's throat. Three visits to the pillory and a stretch in New gate Prison resulted. According to West, this was one of the great defining moments in his subject's life, a near-martyrdom that, "far from breaking Defoe's spirit,. . . gave him the courage, patience, and resolution he needed during the years ahead."

Defoe's prison term also gave one of his admirers—Robert Harley, Speaker of the House of Commons and a moderate Tory—a chance to intervene on his behalf. Soon enough Defoe was set free by edict of Queen Anne and enlisted as a spy for Her Majesty's Government. Here, too, he stood out from the pack. In 1707 he wrote to his employer:

In my management here (among pro-Catholic Jocosities) I am a perfect emissary. I act the old part of Cardinal Richelieu. I have my spies and my pensioners in every place, and I confess 'tis the easiest thing in the world to hire people here to betray their friends.

Defoe's years as secret-agent-cum-journalist make for the most exciting portions of the biography. West admires his subject and tolerates, even as he tsk-tsks, Defoe's most outrageous behavior—a refreshing change from the current fashion that requires biographers to rip their subjects to shreds. Happily, there is much that deserves admiration, not least Defoe's astonishing industry. He started a weekly newspaper, the Review, and from 1704-1713 wrote each issue in its entirety. He churned out one bizarre book after another: The Dyed of Poland (17'05) transpose^ English politics to Gdansk, while the very title of The Consolidator: Or Memoir of Sundry Transactions in the World of the Moon (also 1705) speaks for itself. For twenty years he wrote and spied; at one time, he ran eight newspapers, penning large portions of each himself. Approaching the watershed of his sixtieth year, his journalistic energies finally began to flag. Small wonder! But rather than retire his pen, Defoe reinvented himself again, and became, in 1719, the world's first novelist.

Here we run up against the mystery already alluded to: How can we explain the miracle of Robinson Crusoe West prepares us for this glorious invention by harping on Defoe's love of subterfuge. For Crusoe, like many of Defoe's earlier works, is a hoax, a novel posing as autobiography ("The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner . . . Written by himself). Defoe's subsequent novels—Journal of the Plague Year, Moll Flanders, Roxana, and the rest—belong to the same shadowy genre of fiction passing as truth.

Crusoe's format, then, seems well-accounted for. But what of its content? Those who have read the unabridged version know that Crusoe is more than an adventure novel; it is a tale of religious conversion, telling how an isolated man rebuilds Christendom from some bits of flotsam and a repentant heart. Here West provides another clue, demonstrating how, as Defoe aged, he grew more convinced of the dangers of secularism and of the need for religious integrity and a rigorous moral code.

Defoe expounded these ideas in a series of books, written at the same time as Crusoe, including The Family Instructor, Religious Courtship, and Conjugal Lewdness or Matrimonial Whoredom. All three works counsel a strict Christian life, dispensing advice on wayward sons, impious wives, the evil of contraception and abortion, and the danger of exercising the "frolic part" outside of the marriage chamber. As West points out, these texts not only establish Defoe as a champion of Christian virtue—a theme sounded over and over again in Crusoe—but also reveal his domestic happiness, including his love for his wife, Mary.

But what of Crusoe's literary brilliance, its startling universality, which led Coleridge to remark that "compare the contemptuous Swift with the contemned De Foe, and how superior will the latter be found. . . . (He) raises me into the universal man. Now this is De Foe's excellence. You become a man while you read"? Here West is of little help. In place of analysis, he offers plot summary. It is pleasant to discover a Defoe biography that rises above the special-interest interpretations offered by Rousseau, Marx, Virginia Wolf, et al., but one wishes that West, who is obviously sympathetic to Defoe's religiosity, had done more to explore its role in his subject's greatest work. He does advance one pet theory, asserting, contrary to all prevailing Crusoe criticism, that the true-life tale of Alexander Selkirk was not the genesis for Defoe's masterpiece. The contention is amusing and smartly argued, but hardly makes up for West's clumsiness at literary discussion—a serious flaw in an otherwise solid book.

Defoe ended his professional years as he began them, writing a string of curiosities that include General History of the Pirates (1726) and The Universal History of Apparitions (1729).(2) He died clone in a London boarding house, hiding from debtors. The cause of death was given as "lethargy," an ailment that would have surely killed a man of such compressed energies. He left behind 566 books and pamphlets as well as abundant evidence, if such be needed, of the infinite mystery of the human person. For who can fathom this liar, spy, and wearer of masks, this incomparable literary genius, this tireless exponent of Christian goodness? Which aspect reigned supreme we will never know, but we can be sure, from a letter written a year before his death, where Defoe placed his hope: "Be it that the passage is rough and the day stormy, by which way so ever He pleases to bring me to the end of it, I desire to finish life with this temper of soul in all cases:

Philip Zaleski is editor of The Best Spiritual Writing 1998 and author, most recently, of Gifts of the Spirit. His article "The Strange Shipwreck of Robinson Crusoe" appeared in the May 1995 issue of First Things.

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Daniel Defoe was born in London in 1660, probably in September, third child and first son of James and Mary Defoe. Daniel received a very good education, as his father hoped he would become ministers, but Daniel wasn't interested. His family was Dissenters, Presbyterians to be precise, and those sects were being persecuted a bit at this time, so maybe Daniel had the right idea. He was always very tolerant of others' religious ideas himself.

His mother died when he was ten, and his father sent him to a boarding school, after which he attended Morison’s Academy, as he could not graduate from Oxford or Cambridge without taking an oath of loyalty to the Church of England. He was a very good student, and his teacher, the Reverend Mr. Norton himself, would later show up as a character in some of Daniel's fiction. Daniel graduated in 1679, and by then he'd pretty much decided against the ministry, though he wrote and spoke in favor of the Dissenters all his lives.

By 1683, Daniel was a successful young merchant, with a storefront in an upscale part of London and no real ideas of becoming a writer at all. On New Year's Day, 1684, he married Mary Truffle, an heiress whose dowry amounted to £3,7004. Later that year, he joined the army of the rebel Duke of Monmouth, who was attempting to take the throne from James Us. When the rebellion failed, Daniel and many other troops were forced into semi-exile. He traveled around the continent for three years, off and on, as both tourist and merchant, and wrote very dangerous, very anti-James II pamphlets. Daniel was very pleased when William and Mary took charge, and wrote in favor of William in particular, but he was in the minority there.

Daniel went bankrupt in 1692. He ended up owing over £17,000, and though he paid off all but £5,000 within ten years, he was never again free of debt. Though he still considered himself a merchant, first and foremost, writing suddenly became a more prominent part of his life. In 1701, he wrote a poem? Called the True-Born Englishman which became the best-selling poem ever at that time. It was so well-known that he signed several of his later works as The True-Born Englishman, and everyone knew exactly what that meant. Still, it was only a pamphlet, which made Daniel the lowest form of writer as far as his contemporaries were concerned. He also started taking on a few "unofficial" government jobs, most notably an assignment to Scotland. There was at that time a movement to finally unify England and Scotland, a movement which was very misunderstood by the average Scotsman. So Daniel tried to explain things to them calmly.

There's really no way of telling how well the Scotland thing worked. The next real event in his life was when he was pilloried in July 17039. His crime, posted on a sign above his head, was that he wrote a pamphlet called The Shortest Way with the Dissenters. You may recall that Daniel himself had been labeled a Dissenter. This pamphlet, in true Jonathan Swift-style, made several outrageous suggestions for dealing with Dissenters, particularly those who practiced "occasional conformity". It sold well, and the High Flyers (the group which persecuted the Dissenters the most) in particular loved it, until someone told them it was satirical. Then they had Daniel pilloried. It wasn't quite as nasty of a punishment as it could have been, though— the crowd respected their True-Born Englishman too much to throw rotten tomatoes at him, the usual custom. He was the only person ever pilloried who later went on to become a national hero.

He'd also gotten another prison term, though, and that was a problem his business failed while he was in New gate. Desperate to get back on his feet to support his wife and six children, he contacted Robert Harley, Speaker of Parliament, whom Daniel probably knew from his spying days. Robert appreciated Daniel's usefulness as a writer and manipulator of popular opinion. From then on, Daniel had a steady job as a pamphleteer for all kinds of ministries, Tory and Whig alike.

In 1706, he returned to Scotland and started up a newspaper in Edinburgh called the Post-Maniz, which of course tried to put the still-under-construction unification plans in the best possible light. But Daniel, in his eternal quest for truth, actually bothered to learn about Scotland and its people, a rather unusual thing for that time. He also set up a really impressive intelligence-gathering network. The Act of Union was made official on 1 May 1707, and Daniel was out of one job. But he still had his pamphlets to fall back on, so things were all right.(3)

The first volume of Robinson Crusoe was published on 25 April 171914, and it was a big hit, especially with the lower and middle classes. Since that one worked so well, Daniel published Moll Flanders in 1722, drawing heavily on his experiences in New gate prison to add realisms. This novel got him the label of a social historian, much, much later, of course. The point was, the public ate up this kind of thing, and Daniel wrote lots of it. He also worked for a publisher named Mr. Applebee between 1720 and 1726, who liked to publish lives of condemned criminals. Daniel used to go to prison cells and even the scaffold to receive manuscripts for these lives from the criminals themselves. He sometimes goofed up on dates and numbers, but all of these lives are wonderful studies of character and society, though often a bit too heavy on the moral lessons by today's standards.

Daniel wrote on various economic issues of the day, as well as on the problems of long-term colonization and exploration, showing that he really was paying a lot of attention to everything. He even wrote a travel book, A Tour Thro' the whole Island of Great Britain, which was highly unusual for the time in that he'd actually traveled to the places he wrote about. He was really kind of a Renaissance man, I suppose, though he didn't quite live in the right time period for that. He died in Cripple gate on 24 April 1731, of a lethargy?.

Now you can download the entire unabridged texts of both of Defoe's great Robinson Crusoe novels absolutely free! This plunder is yours for the taking. You can download it now, or if you're short on disk space, you can come here and read it online whenever you want.

Robinson Crusoe is one of the world's most popular adventure novels. Daniel Defoe based his classic tale of shipwreck and survival on an uninhabited island is based on a true story. The real Robinson Crusoe was a Scotsman named Alexander Selkirk (or Secreting).

Born in 1676, when Selkirk was 19 years old he was cited for indecent conduct in church, but before he could be reprimanded, he ran off to sea. That was in 1695. By 1703 he was the sailing master of a galley. The following year he joined a pirate expedition to the Pacific Ocean that was led by Capt. William Dampier. Selkirk's ship had Thomas Straddling as it's captain.

After spending some time in the Pacific and numerous raids on the Spanish towns and shipping, they were preparing to return to England with their booty. Their ship had suffered considerable damage in battle and Selkirk felt they needed to repair her before setting off around the Horn. The captain disagreed. After a heated argument and in a fit of anger, Selkirk refused to go any farther and demanded he be set ashore on the Island of Juan Fernandez. which was about 400 miles off the coast of Chile. This, the captain was glad to do.

Once ashore, Selkirk realized the enormity of what he had done. He thought others in the crew would join him, but none did. He changed his mind and tried to convince the captain to take him back. The captain refused and Selkirk found he had marooned himself alone on an uninhabited island. Actually this was the smart thing to do since the ship later sank killing most of those aboard, but at the time he didn't know this.

After about two years on the island he finally saw a ship and ran down to the shore to greet it. He realized almost too late that it was a Spanish ship and the

Spaniards opened fire on him as he ran for cover. They were unable to find him and eventually left. He was much more cautious after that.

Selkirk was able to domesticate some goats and cats he found on the island and these were his only companions though out his stay of almost 4 1/2 years. He was finally found in February 1709 by William Dampier, who was then pilot on a private ring expedition headed by Captain Woods Rogers.

Rogers appointed Selkirk as ship's mate and later gave him command of captured ship. For the next two years they conducted raids on the coast of Peru and Chile. They even captured a Spanish galleon. Selkirk was very well-off when they returned to London in 1711, as his share of the booty came to £800—a sizable fortune in those days. Selkirk soon met essayist Richard Steele, who wrote up Selkirk's story and published it as "The Englishman" in 1711.(4)

Selkirk eventually returned to his home in Scotland, where he became quite a celebrity. Though he did get married, he never quite recovered from his stay on the island. Spending much of his time alone, he didn't feel comfortable living indoors and built a sort of cave or bower behind his father's house that he stayed in. He also trained two cats to perform little feats, like he did on the island. Eventually he returned to sea and he died of fever off the coast of Africa in 1721 at the age of

While some biographers say Defoe never met Selkirk, others say the two met at the house of Mrs. Demaris Daniel in Bristol, where Selkirk told Defoe firsthand of his adventures and even gave Defoe his personal papers. Either way, there's little doubt Crusoe is largely inspired by Selkirk. He may have also been in Robert Louis Stephenson's mind when he wrote of the marooned pirate Ben Gunn in Treasure Island.

In the novel, Defoe extended Selkirk's 4 1/2 years on the island to Robinson Crusoe's 28 years. He also moved the island from off the coast of Chile far out in the Pacific Ocean to just off the coast of Venezuela. In relation to our main interest—which is pirates and piracy—before Crusoe is shipwrecked on the island he is captured by Moorish pirates from Sallee on the coast of Africa, but soon escapes. And while his rescuers are not exactly pirates, they are in the midst of a mutiny that Crusoe helps put down and brings them back to the straight and narrow.

Even though Robinson Crusoe is a fictional character, like Sherlock Holmes he has crossed over from fiction to fact in the minds of some people. There are even people on the Island of Tobago who claim to be descended from Robinson Crusoe.

The sours of the “Robinson Crusoe’s Adventures”

Need is the Mother of inventions as an expression taking from woods Rodgers the author of “The sail around the world” written 1712. Woods Rodgers was the captain who found Alexander Selkirk on the island “Khan Fernandez”.(5)

1. М. П. Алексеев: Статьи в книге «Даниель Дефо и его роман “Робинзон Крузо “ стр.5-8.»

Москва « Детская литература» 1988. стр. 3-248.

Alexander Selkirk a Scottish scat of sailor who lived in Khan Fernandez island 4 years and 4 month (1705-1709)

Defoe’s hero is a typical Englishman. He has his own dignities and (short-comings) = lack= (of) shortages of his characters these are analyzed by Defoe’s as the character of the main hero. The hero wants his country to be developed and to be the owner of new colonies. That is why Robinson Crusoe sells the boy in Brazil though he could escape captivity together with the boy he does it without any hesitation indifferently. He turns Friday into his servant and for slave though he makes pacific speeches against Spanish colonizers and gustier. These are common typical features almost every contemporary of the writer.

Selkirk and his like stayed in union habited islands not too long. But Robinson Crusoe lived in his island twenty eight years, two months and nineteen days. The author knew this is rather long solitude loneliness though.

The man had a strong will and energy as even comparatively less period, left to destiny itself last their human look cast of mind and then even last their speech. But lengthening the term period. Defoe go an opportunity to awake the readers’ sympathy to his hero.

He also got a necessary opportunity for detailed description about moral and physical development of single man, about possible means of development of his abilities and spiritual force. This story turned into a story about inner ripening of a man, full of delicate fine physiological observations. Specialists think that Daniel Defoe felt strong influence of the philosophy of the end of the XVIII and the beginning of the XIX centuries. Especially Defoe’s outlook had much in common with the ideas of one of the founders of English Enlightment John Lock the author of “An Experience (about) on Human Mind”.(6)

Daniel Defoe borrowed an idea from John Lock about it a man in solitude could appropriate the fight to own the land and the products to all members of the society.

The influence of John Lock’s ideas concerning education can be seen in Robinson’s teaching Friday the truths of Christian religion.

Defoe’s book is penetrated with the ideas of Enlightenment these are: glorification of reasons, optimism, and labor. “Robinson Crusoe” is a book of complex structure and of big ideological content. These things made the book popular in the Epoch of Enlightenment. These ideas put the book on the top of the belles letters of those days, these ideas made it the prototype of future realistic novel in European literature.   

“Robinson Crusoe” made great impression on prominent writers and poets one of whom was Goethe, not only the men of letters of Europe but in other countries too. Great books of world literature are kept in the minds in the memories of many generations of readers not only for their significance but also what effects they had for the development of the future literature. This novel belongs to the ranks of works which are read by millions of people all the world over. The book staid alive thanks to the fact that it thought us to live and build life. Future readers should also know this educative essence of the book and they should never forget the significance of this nice creation, we must not forget the lessons of the hero.

“Robinson Crusoe’s way to Uzbekistan via Russia

A well known scholar Alekseev M.P. tells us that the first Russian translator of Defoe’s novel was Trusov. His translation ( made, by the way, from French) was published in two parts in 1762-1764 and has in Russian the following little. Жизнь и приключения. Робинзон Крузо природного англичанина Д. Фое. No doubt that in XVIII century “Robinson Crusoe” was read much both in Russian translation and besides in different western European abridged editions and alterations. (переделки) This period ma be considered the time when youth lived to read the book. In N. I. Novelov’s journal magazine “Детская чтение для сердца и разума”(1785-1789) (“children’s reading for heart and reason”) we find an extraction from “Robinson Crusoe an ditched alteration 1779 made I. G. Khaire. And in “Reminiscences” of S. H. Glinka there is a story about his tutor, Frenchman Lablane, who had been a passionate admirer of “Robinson” and who implanted love in for this famous book not only but all his ages when twenty years later the same Glinka began to publish his magazine “New children’s readers” (1819-1824) he opened the magazine with “Robinson Crusoe” in his own shortening curtailment and alteration for young readers. And the shortenings curtailments from the same work extracts in the magazines for grown ups.

There appeared various alterations of the book. Different books appeared during not only XVIII but XIX century as well. Among shade who made such alterations shortenings curtailments we may name us outstanding Russian writers L. N. Tolstoy. Among many publish and bad translations we may mansion. P. A. Korsakov and P. Konchalovsky’s translation.

M. A. Shishmoreva and Z. N. Shuravshaya as experienced translators carried out new interpretations of the novel in XIX-XX centuries. York an ancient town of northern England gave the name to one of the widest fastest dukedom the Kingdom Yorkshire was also one of the most important trade ports centuries. Crusoe is near to a Germanic Lord Kraus “Корец”and a verb “крейцер”- крестить.

Robinson Crusoe and his character

An unnamed editor explains his reasons for offering us the narrative we are about to read. He does not mention the name or story of Robinson Crusoe explicitly but, rather, describes the narrative as a “private man’s adventures in the world” and focuses on its realism when he calls it a “just history of fact.” He claims it is modest and serious, and that it has an instructive value, teaching us to honor “the wisdom of Providence.” Thus, the editor asserts he is doing a great service to the world in publishing Crusoe’s tale.

A man named Robinson Crusoe records his own life story, beginning with his birth in 1632 in the English city of York. Crusoe’s father was a German, originally named Kreutznaer. Crusoe is the youngest of three brothers, the eldest being a soldier and the second one having vanished mysteriously. As the youngest son in the family, Crusoe is expected to inherit little, and, as a result, his father encourages him to take up the law. But Crusoe’s inclination is to go to sea. His family strongly opposes this idea, and his father gives him a stern lecture on the value of accepting a middle station in life. Crusoe resolves to follow his father’s advice. But when one of his friends embarks for London, Crusoe succumbs to temptation and boards the ship on September 1, 1651. A storm develops. Near Yarmouth the weather is so bad that Crusoe fears for his life and prays to God for deliverance. The ship nearly founders, but all are saved. Crusoe sees this ordeal as a sign of fate that he should give up sea travel, and his friend’s father warns him against setting foot on a ship again, echoing his own father’s warning.

ROBINSON CRUSOE IS AN ENGLISHMAN from the town of York in the seventeenth century, the youngest son of a merchant of German origin. Encouraged by his father to study law, Crusoe expresses his wish to go to sea instead. His family is against Crusoe going out to sea, and his father explains that it is better to seek a modest, secure life for oneself. Initially, Robinson is committed to obeying his father, but he eventually succumbs to temptation and embarks on a ship bound for London with a friend. When a storm causes the near deaths of Crusoe and his friend, the friend is dissuaded from sea travel, but Crusoe still goes on to set himself up as merchant on a ship leaving London. This trip is financially successful, and Crusoe plans another, leaving his early profits in the care of a friendly widow. The second voyage does not prove as fortunate: the ship is seized by Moorish pirates, and Crusoe is enslaved to a potentate in the North African town of Sallee. While on a fishing expedition, he and a slave boy break free and sail down the African coast. A kindly Portuguese captain picks them up, buys the slave boy from Crusoe, and takes Crusoe to Brazil. In Brazil, Crusoe establishes himself as a plantation owner and soon becomes successful. Eager for slave labor and its economic advantages, he embarks on a slave-gathering expedition to West Africa but ends up shipwrecked off of the coast of Trinidad.

Crusoe soon learns he is the sole survivor of the expedition and seeks shelter and food for himself. He returns to the wreck’s remains twelve times to salvage guns, powder, food, and other items. Onshore, he finds goats he can graze for meat and builds himself a shelter. He erects a cross that he inscribes with the date of his arrival, September 1, 1659, and makes a notch every day in order never to lose track of time. He also keeps a journal of his household activities, noting his attempts to make candles, his lucky discovery of sprouting grain, and his construction of a cellar, among other events. In June 1660, he falls ill and hallucinates that an angel visits, warning him to repent. Drinking tobacco-steeped rum, Crusoe experiences a religious illumination and realizes that God has delivered him from his earlier sins. After recovering, Crusoe makes a survey of the area and discovers he is on an island. He finds a pleasant valley abounding in grapes, where he builds a shady retreat. Crusoe begins to feel more optimistic about being on the island, describing himself as its “king.” He trains a pet parrot, takes a goat as a pet, and develops skills in basket weaving, bread making, and pottery. He cuts down an enormous cedar tree and builds a huge canoe from its trunk, but he discovers that he cannot move it to the sea. After building a smaller boat, he rows around the island but nearly perishes when swept away by a powerful current. Reaching shore, he hears his parrot calling his name and is thankful for being saved once again. He spends several years in peace.

One day Crusoe is shocked to discover a man’s footprint on the beach. He first assumes the footprint is the devil’s, then decides it must belong to one of the cannibals said to live in the region. Terrified, he arms himself and remains on the lookout for cannibals. He also builds an underground cellar in which to herd his goats at night and devises a way to cook underground. One evening he hears gunshots, and the next day he is able to see a ship wrecked on his coast. It is empty when he arrives on the scene to investigate. Crusoe once again thanks Providence for having been saved. Soon afterward, Crusoe discovers that the shore has been strewn with human carnage, apparently the remains of a cannibal feast. He is alarmed and continues to be vigilant. Later Crusoe catches sight of thirty cannibals heading for shore with their victims. One of the victims is killed. Another one, waiting to be slaughtered, suddenly breaks free and runs toward Crusoe’s dwelling. Crusoe protects him, killing one of the pursuers and injuring the other, whom the victim finally kills. Well-armed, Crusoe defeats most of the cannibals onshore. The victim vows total submission to Crusoe in gratitude for his liberation. Crusoe names him Friday, to commemorate the day on which his life was saved, and takes him as his servant.

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 afterward at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznear; 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. (7)

I had two elder brothers, one of which was lieutenant-colonel to an English regiment of foot in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards; what became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father and mother did know what was become of me.

Being the third son of the family, and not bred to any trade, my head began to be filled very early with rambling thoughts. My father, who was very ancient, had given me a competent share of learning, as far as house-education and a country free school generally goes, and designed me for the law, but I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will, nay, the commands, of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends, that there seemed to be something fatal in that profession of nature tending directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.

My father, a wise and grave man, gave me serious and excellent counsel against what he foresaw was my design. He called me one morning into his chamber, where he was confined by the gout, and expostulated very warmly with me upon this subject. He asked me what reasons more than a mere wandering inclination I had for leaving my father's house and my native country, where I might be well introduced, and had a prospect of raising my fortunes by application and industry, with a life of ease and pleasure. He told me it was for men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of aspiring, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad upon adventures, to rise by enterprise, and make themselves famous in undertakings of a nature out of the common road; that these things were all either too far above me, or too far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found by long experience was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness, not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labor and sufferings, of the mechanic part of mankind, and not embarrassed with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper part of mankind. He told me I might judge of the happiness of this state by one thing, viz., that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this as the just standard of true felicity, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches.

He bid me observe it, and I should always find that the calamities of life were shared among the upper and lower part of mankind; but that the middle station had the fewest disasters and was not exposed to so many vicissitudes as the higher or lower part of mankind. Nay, they were not subjected to so many distempers and uneasiness either of body or mind as those were who, by vicious living, luxury, and extravagancies on one hand, or by hard labor, want of necessaries, and mean or insufficient diet on the other hand, bring distempers upon themselves by the natural consequences of their way of living; that the middle station of life was calculated for all kind of virtues and all kind of enjoyments; that peace and plenty were the handmaids of a middle fortune; that temperance, moderation, quietness, health, society, all agreeable diversions, and all desirable pleasures, were the blessings attending the middle station of life; that this way men went silently and smoothly through the world, and comfortably out of it, not embarrassed with the labors of the hands or of the head, not sold to the life of slavery for daily bread, or harassed with perplexed circumstances, which rob the soul of peace, and the body of rest; not enraged with the passion of envy, or secret burning lust of ambition for great things; but in easy circumstances sliding gently through the world, and sensibly tasting the sweets of living, without the bitter, feeling that they are happy, and learning by every day's experience to know it more sensibly.

After this, he pressed me earnestly, and in the most affectionate manner, not to play the young man, not to precipitate myself into miseries which Nature and the station of life I was born in seemed to have provided against; that I was under no necessity of seeking my bread; that he would do well for me, and endeavor to enter me fairly into the station of life which he had been just recommending to me; and that if I was not very easy and happy in the world it must be my mere fate or fault that must hinder it, and that he should have nothing to answer for, having thus discharged his duty in warning me against measures which he knew would be to my hurt; in a word, that as he would do very kind things for me if I would stay and settle at home as he directed, so he would not have so much hand in my misfortunes, as to give me any encouragement to go away. And to close all, he told me I had my elder brother for an example, to whom he had used the same earnest persuasions to keep him from going into the Low Country wars, but could not prevail, his young desires prompting him to run into the army, where he was killed; and though he said he would not cease to pray for me, yet he would venture to say to me, that if I did take this foolish step, God would not bless me, and I would have leisure hereafter to reflect upon having neglected his counsel when there might be none to assist in my recovery.

I observed in this last part of his discourse, which was truly prophetic, though I suppose my father did not know it to be so himself - I say, I observed the tears run down his face very plentifully, and especially when he spoke of my brother who was killed; and that when he spoke of my having leisure to repent, and none to assist me, he was so moved that he broke off the discourse, and told me his heart was so full he could say no more to me. (8)

I was sincerely affected with this discourse, as indeed who could be otherwise? And I resolved not to think of going abroad any more, but to settle at home according to my father's desire. But alas! a few days wore it all off; and, in short, to prevent any of my father's farther importunities, in a few weeks after I resolved to run quite away from him. However, I did not act so hastily neither as my first heat of resolution prompted, but I took my mother, at a time when I thought her a little pleasanter than ordinary, and told her that my thoughts were so entirely bent upon seeing the world that I should never settle to anything with resolution enough to go through with it, and my father had better give me his consent than force me to go without it; that I was now eighteen years old, which was too late to go apprentice to a trade, or clerk to an attorney; that I was sure if I did, I should never serve out my time, and I should certainly run away from my master before my time was out, and go to sea; and if she would speak to my father to let me go but one voyage abroad, if I came home again and did not like it, I would go no more, and I would promise by a double diligence to recover that time I had lost.

This put my mother into a great passion. She told me she knew it would be to no purpose to speak to my father upon any such subject; that he knew too well what was my interest to give his consent to anything so much for my hurt, and that she wondered how I could think of any such thing after such a discourse as I had had with my father, and such kind and tender expressions as she knew my father had used to me; and that, in short, if I would ruin myself there was no help for me; but I might depend I should never have their consent to it; that for her part, she should not have so much hand in my destruction, and I should never have it to say, that my mother was willing when my father was not.

Finding Friday cheerful and intelligent, Crusoe teaches him some English words and some elementary Christian concepts. Friday, in turn, explains that the cannibals are divided into distinct nations and that they only eat their enemies. Friday also informs Crusoe that the cannibals saved the men from the shipwreck Crusoe witnessed earlier, and that those men, Spaniards, are living nearby. Friday expresses a longing to return to his people, and Crusoe is upset at the prospect of losing Friday. Crusoe then entertains the idea of making contact with the Spaniards, and Friday admits that he would rather die than lose Crusoe. The two build a boat to visit the cannibals’ land together. Before they have a chance to leave, they are surprised by the arrival of twenty-one cannibals in canoes. The cannibals are holding three victims, one of whom is in European dress. Friday and Crusoe kill most of the cannibals and release the European, a Spaniard. Friday is overjoyed to discover that another of the rescued victims is his father. The four men return to Crusoe’s dwelling for food and rest. Crusoe prepares to welcome them into his community permanently. He sends Friday’s father and the Spaniard out in a canoe to explore the nearby land.

Eight days later, the sight of an approaching English ship alarms Friday. Crusoe is suspicious. Friday and Crusoe watch as eleven men take three captives onshore in a boat. Nine of the men explore the land, leaving two to guard the captives. Friday and Crusoe overpower these men and release the captives, one of whom is the captain of the ship, which has been taken in a mutiny. Shouting to the remaining mutineers from different points, Friday and Crusoe confuse and tire the men by making them run from place to place. Eventually they confront the mutineers, telling them that all may escape with their lives except the ringleader. The men surrender. Crusoe and the captain pretend that the island is an imperial territory and that the governor has spared their lives in order to send them all to England to face justice. Keeping five men as hostages, Crusoe sends the other men out to seize the ship. When the ship is brought in, Crusoe nearly faints.

On December 19, 1686, Crusoe boards the ship to return to England.(9) There, he finds his family is deceased except for two sisters. His widow friend has kept Crusoe’s money safe, and after traveling to Lisbon, Crusoe learns from the Portuguese captain that his plantations in Brazil have been highly profitable. He arranges to sell his Brazilian lands. Wary of sea travel, Crusoe attempts to return to England by land but is threatened by bad weather and wild animals in northern Spain. Finally arriving back in England, Crusoe receives word that the sale of his plantation