Daniel Defoe

An abridged version of the tale of Englishman Robinson Crusoe, who, after becoming the sole survivor of a 1659 shipwreck, lives on a deserted island for more than twenty-eight years.

Contemporary fiction. 'I walk'd about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance . . . reflecting upon all my comrades that were drown'd, and that there should not be one soul sav'd but my self . . . ' Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the...

An Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island.

The story is based on the Defoe character, Moll Flanders who is a high-spirited and beautiful, but also destitute young woman living as a social outcast in 18th century England.

"Roxana (1724), Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own 'wicked' life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past. Unlike Defoe's other penitent anti-heroes, however,...

During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600s, an Englishman Crusoe becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives on a deserted island for more than twenty-eight years.