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The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner, Volume 1 With an Account of His Travels Round Three Parts of the Globe, Written By Himself, in Two Volumes
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159 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1719
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200 people want to read
About the author
Daniel Defoe
5,702 books2,004 followersDaniel Defoe was an English novelist, journalist, merchant, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. Defoe wrote many political tracts, was often in trouble with the authorities, and spent a period in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted him.
Defoe was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works—books, pamphlets, and journals—on diverse topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of business journalism and economic journalism.
Defoe was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works—books, pamphlets, and journals—on diverse topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural. He was also a pioneer of business journalism and economic journalism.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
July 21, 2022
4,25 sterren- Nederlandse hardcover
Re-read. Recensie volgt later.
Re-read. Recensie volgt later.
January 27, 2020
Written in 1719, the young and impulsive Robinson Cursoe defied his parents and set out to sea. Well, things didn't go as planned, and he became stranded for over 28 years as a castaway, keeping a daily journal of his life.
The prose was written as only the English could do back then. For example, the author, Daniel Defoe could speak of deplorable things such as capturing slaves and cannibalism in the same type of manner that could have also said "Would you like a cuppa tea?"
He did have plenty of alone time with God, and reasoned things out in a way that was inspiring. And his father's advice about the worries of both the rich and poor, made it sound plausible that to be middle class was the best option for a less stressful existence.
The prose was written as only the English could do back then. For example, the author, Daniel Defoe could speak of deplorable things such as capturing slaves and cannibalism in the same type of manner that could have also said "Would you like a cuppa tea?"
He did have plenty of alone time with God, and reasoned things out in a way that was inspiring. And his father's advice about the worries of both the rich and poor, made it sound plausible that to be middle class was the best option for a less stressful existence.
November 17, 2025
Oscar Wilde decía que la vida moral de un hombre forma parte del tema para el artista, Robinson Crusoe es pues la novela de la moral del europeo colonial y su afán por descubrir, arrasar, y conquistar.
Ignorando lo reprochable que son estas ideas para nosotros en el presente, este libro es también una gran exaltación del ingenio y recursividad de la que es capaz la condición humana, vividamente retratada en todas las aventuras y desventuras de Robinson Crusoe.
Es por eso que este es un libro que ofrece —o exije— dos lecturas a quien lo lea: la primera, crítica y cautelosa, y la segunda, intensa y divertida.
Cuatro de cinco.
Ignorando lo reprochable que son estas ideas para nosotros en el presente, este libro es también una gran exaltación del ingenio y recursividad de la que es capaz la condición humana, vividamente retratada en todas las aventuras y desventuras de Robinson Crusoe.
Es por eso que este es un libro que ofrece —o exije— dos lecturas a quien lo lea: la primera, crítica y cautelosa, y la segunda, intensa y divertida.
Cuatro de cinco.
March 10, 2021
Las aventuras y desventuras de un hombre cuyo barco naufraga, el se salva, pero queda en una isla desierta. Como se las ingenia para sobrevivir durante largos años, y los acontecimientos que le van sucediendo y cómo los resuelve. Transcurre en la época de 1600,así que poca tecnología tenía para sobrevivir.
Muy interesante y bien narrado, genera expectativa para saber qué cosas le van sucediendo y también, para saber si puede escapar de la isla.
Muy interesante y bien narrado, genera expectativa para saber qué cosas le van sucediendo y también, para saber si puede escapar de la isla.
August 14, 2022
Un buen libro en el que, de manera sutil y a través del pensamiento del protagonista, racista irredento, nos hace ver el pensamiento de la época sobre todo lo que no fuera del hombre blanco. Irónica visión que hace de Robinson Crusoe alguien con demasiados prejuicios sobre la superioridad del hombre blanco. Defoe de esta forma critica esa postura de toda una sociedad.
Alguien puede ver solo una novela de aventuras aquí. Pero si lo hace es que no ha pasado de leer la superficie del relato.
Alguien puede ver solo una novela de aventuras aquí. Pero si lo hace es que no ha pasado de leer la superficie del relato.
June 16, 2020
Audoiobook
Een bijzonder leuk geschreven boek. Je dient het in zijn tijdsgewricht te zien maar dan nog kunnen de vooroordelen en het racisme soms storend zijn.
Maar schitterend geschreven boek, een ode aan de creativiteit. Heb hier van genoten
Een bijzonder leuk geschreven boek. Je dient het in zijn tijdsgewricht te zien maar dan nog kunnen de vooroordelen en het racisme soms storend zijn.
Maar schitterend geschreven boek, een ode aan de creativiteit. Heb hier van genoten
September 19, 2024
👩❤️👨🧑🏻💼👒👗🌅🗾🎐📒📔📘📗📕📖📨🌷💮🏵️🌸🦋🧋☕🍹🌊🫧🏝️🏞️🔖🧭
January 28, 2016
We all know the story of Robinson Crusoe and his redoubtable man Friday from our youth, so persistently pleasing has Defoe's novel of survival against the odds and unlikely friendship proven to be, three hundred years now after it was first published.
Together with Stevenson's later Treasure Island, which consciously tapped into the same vein of adventure and hardihood, Robinson Crusoe has become a childhood favourite, best remembered in abridged versions which have been shortened and slightly reworked to suit a youthful readership.
I had never really been interested in reading Defoe's actual novel until just a few years ago when I read the South African writer J.M. Coetze's clever subversion of the tale, Foe, which recast Crusoe in a completely new, unfavourable light as a morose figure, floundering in silence and sloth until a firm women's hand exerts an influence on the island.
Why had Coetze re-imagined the classic in this way? I would only find the answer by going back to the source story, which I got around to.
Defoe's Robinson, the somewhat dissolute son of a wealthy german trader who settled in Yorkshire, willfully decides to go to sea seeking adventure very much against his father's advice and entreaties.
He experiences shipwreck on his maiden voyage off the english coast and gets labelled a Jonah, yet resolves to continue his seafaring, suffering storms, piracy, two years of enslavement to a Moorish master and then, after escaping to become a plantation owner in the Brazils for a few years, again becomes shipwrecked on an uninhabited Caribbean island, where he lives alone for the best part of thirty years.
The notion of Providence pervades the book, as Crusoe finds solace in the Bible and learns lessons about the emptiness of his previous life. Christian didacticism underpins the tale, whereas the modern retellings I grew up with tended to downplay that aspect and replace it with the notions of friendship and tolerance represented in Friday.
But the savage is very much a slave here, who Crusoe teaches to refer to him as "master".
Defoe's Christian purpose probably supplied the novels strongest moment though. When Crusoe witnesses the cannibals eating their victims his first instinct is to kill them, yet he desists, for his solitude has taught him to think like Christ.
He compares their actions culturally to that of murders committed by Christians on their enemies after battle, asking himself "what right I had to engage in the quarrel of that blood which they shed promiscuously upon one another?".
The other main feature of this book that I think probably explains its particular popularity in Britain across the years is the strong message of benevolent, rightful colonization that characterises Crusoe's actions.
Crusoe, though initially through misadventure, becomes the consummate British imperialist, bringing order to chaos as he painstakingly harvests the resources of the wild island to best insure his survival;then bringing light to darkness as he changes the customs and habits of Friday from those of a savage to those of an english gentleman.
A service for which Friday, as you can well imagine, is extremely grateful!
As a reading experience, I think I need to acknowledge the lingering feelings of boyish goodwill that helped me to get through what was a lumpen, painfully one-paced narrative by modern standards. I can see why the abridged versions hold sway now, whereas, say, Gulliver's Travels (though often presented in abridged form) is still widely read as written by Swift.
As for Coetze's reinterpretation, I can see why the colonial theme would interest him, alongside the story of the black and white master/servant relationship. I can also see why he presents Crusoe as lazy, considering it takes him the best part of three years to even start roaming the island and fifteen years into his stay before he decides to build a new goat-pen.
But the feminist angle escapes me. I will certainly read Foe again.
Together with Stevenson's later Treasure Island, which consciously tapped into the same vein of adventure and hardihood, Robinson Crusoe has become a childhood favourite, best remembered in abridged versions which have been shortened and slightly reworked to suit a youthful readership.
I had never really been interested in reading Defoe's actual novel until just a few years ago when I read the South African writer J.M. Coetze's clever subversion of the tale, Foe, which recast Crusoe in a completely new, unfavourable light as a morose figure, floundering in silence and sloth until a firm women's hand exerts an influence on the island.
Why had Coetze re-imagined the classic in this way? I would only find the answer by going back to the source story, which I got around to.
Defoe's Robinson, the somewhat dissolute son of a wealthy german trader who settled in Yorkshire, willfully decides to go to sea seeking adventure very much against his father's advice and entreaties.
He experiences shipwreck on his maiden voyage off the english coast and gets labelled a Jonah, yet resolves to continue his seafaring, suffering storms, piracy, two years of enslavement to a Moorish master and then, after escaping to become a plantation owner in the Brazils for a few years, again becomes shipwrecked on an uninhabited Caribbean island, where he lives alone for the best part of thirty years.
The notion of Providence pervades the book, as Crusoe finds solace in the Bible and learns lessons about the emptiness of his previous life. Christian didacticism underpins the tale, whereas the modern retellings I grew up with tended to downplay that aspect and replace it with the notions of friendship and tolerance represented in Friday.
But the savage is very much a slave here, who Crusoe teaches to refer to him as "master".
Defoe's Christian purpose probably supplied the novels strongest moment though. When Crusoe witnesses the cannibals eating their victims his first instinct is to kill them, yet he desists, for his solitude has taught him to think like Christ.
He compares their actions culturally to that of murders committed by Christians on their enemies after battle, asking himself "what right I had to engage in the quarrel of that blood which they shed promiscuously upon one another?".
The other main feature of this book that I think probably explains its particular popularity in Britain across the years is the strong message of benevolent, rightful colonization that characterises Crusoe's actions.
Crusoe, though initially through misadventure, becomes the consummate British imperialist, bringing order to chaos as he painstakingly harvests the resources of the wild island to best insure his survival;then bringing light to darkness as he changes the customs and habits of Friday from those of a savage to those of an english gentleman.
A service for which Friday, as you can well imagine, is extremely grateful!
As a reading experience, I think I need to acknowledge the lingering feelings of boyish goodwill that helped me to get through what was a lumpen, painfully one-paced narrative by modern standards. I can see why the abridged versions hold sway now, whereas, say, Gulliver's Travels (though often presented in abridged form) is still widely read as written by Swift.
As for Coetze's reinterpretation, I can see why the colonial theme would interest him, alongside the story of the black and white master/servant relationship. I can also see why he presents Crusoe as lazy, considering it takes him the best part of three years to even start roaming the island and fifteen years into his stay before he decides to build a new goat-pen.
But the feminist angle escapes me. I will certainly read Foe again.
November 30, 2012
Excessive use of viz ... :) But I know what it means now thanks to my Kindle Fire!
In all seriousness, this classic is one I've always wanted to read. The book showed good imagination, but could have gone a lot further in the diary accounts. I mean the guy should have become a better writer and could have given better descriptions. And wow... I hope I am less inept than he was should I ever be stranded on an island as he was. I got bored with goat pens and raisins. The book only got really interesting when the cannibals showed up and that's where the author could have made your hair stand on end ... but he failed to do so. In the beginning you began to really dislike the protagonist who was very selfish and spoiled, and it was strange to me that after being enslaved for 4 years he took on slaves himself. But maybe that was the justness in his punishment - shipwrecked while out trying to round up more slaves for the Brazilian plantations. In the end, the Robinson had matured and became generous and quite likeable. Might even make reading volume 2 worthwhile.... someday.
Keely said it all in his review.
In all seriousness, this classic is one I've always wanted to read. The book showed good imagination, but could have gone a lot further in the diary accounts. I mean the guy should have become a better writer and could have given better descriptions. And wow... I hope I am less inept than he was should I ever be stranded on an island as he was. I got bored with goat pens and raisins. The book only got really interesting when the cannibals showed up and that's where the author could have made your hair stand on end ... but he failed to do so. In the beginning you began to really dislike the protagonist who was very selfish and spoiled, and it was strange to me that after being enslaved for 4 years he took on slaves himself. But maybe that was the justness in his punishment - shipwrecked while out trying to round up more slaves for the Brazilian plantations. In the end, the Robinson had matured and became generous and quite likeable. Might even make reading volume 2 worthwhile.... someday.
Keely said it all in his review.
November 28, 2017
TEMPERANCE, MODERATION, QUIETNESS, HEALTH, PEACE AND SOCIETY WERE THE BLESSINGS ATTENDING THE MIDDLE STATION OF LIFE. NOT EXPOSED TO THE MISERY AND HARDSHIPS OF THE LOWER CLASS NOR THE PRICE, LUXURY, AMBITION AND ENVY OF UPPER.
Robinson Cruso is based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk.
With patience and labour I got through everything that my circumstances made necessary to me to do.
All good things in this world are no further good to us than they are for our use.
I learned to look more upon the bright side of the condition and less upon the dark side and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted.
We never see the true state of our condition till its illustrated to us by its contraries.
Cruso left the island 19/12/1686, 28 years after setting foot on the island.
Robinson Cruso is based on the true story of Alexander Selkirk.
With patience and labour I got through everything that my circumstances made necessary to me to do.
All good things in this world are no further good to us than they are for our use.
I learned to look more upon the bright side of the condition and less upon the dark side and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted.
We never see the true state of our condition till its illustrated to us by its contraries.
Cruso left the island 19/12/1686, 28 years after setting foot on the island.
October 30, 2016
Robinson Crusoe had the bright idea to "tempt Providence" and disobey his parents to run off and sail the high seas on a ship that was on the path to doom. From the time he left the safety of home, hardly a page passed without him falling into some type of success or calamity.
Once stranded on a deserted island, he was forced to rely on his admirable sense of resourcefulness and faith in God to survive for nearly 30 years.
When a lone footprint in the sand and then the grisly remains of cannabilized humans alerted him that he was not as alone on the island as he had for decades assumed, Mr. Crusoe followed his instincts to bravely capture himself a savage servant, his man Friday, and eventually escaped the island.
Goodread!
Once stranded on a deserted island, he was forced to rely on his admirable sense of resourcefulness and faith in God to survive for nearly 30 years.
When a lone footprint in the sand and then the grisly remains of cannabilized humans alerted him that he was not as alone on the island as he had for decades assumed, Mr. Crusoe followed his instincts to bravely capture himself a savage servant, his man Friday, and eventually escaped the island.
Goodread!
November 12, 2017
This is a wonderful classic. I have just finished rereading it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I am a big fan of survival stories, especially those that involve castaways. This one was quite entertaining, and very well written. It did seem just a bit too fortuitous that Crusoe would be able to so easily retrieve so many supplies (including guns) from the grounded ship, and that he would be lucky enough to find goats on the island. But then it is fiction, right? The island itself was well supplied with plenty of resources, which enabled Crusoe not just to survive, but to thrive.
December 11, 2017
I appreciate that this is the first novel written in English, but bored is the right word to explain how I felt while reading this book, on the other hand and to be fair, we could learn some lessons, or let’s say we could learn some life’s lessons out of this novel.
October 15, 2018
I studied Robinson Crusoe in college and now i I teach it for my students ...Well, it's a very interesting story.I like Friday , Robinson and Spanish sailor ..The events are very interesting ..I liked it when i was studying and when i was teaching
April 25, 2019
I suppose it was ground-breaking for its time, though the 1700s religious, racial, and societal views come through in full force. Defoe briefly touches on survivor's guilt and some philosophical exploration, but I thought it would have been more interesting if he had explored those issues more.
April 30, 2016
Amazing history.
January 25, 2019
Classic reading. The inspiration for Castaway?
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews