Al-Warraq Library does not host book files; it takes you to the copy at the original source. Public-domain status differs from country to country, so check the law where you live before downloading or republishing the book. Do you hold rights in this work? Request its removal
Robinson Crusoe tells his own story: how he ran away to sea against his father's advice, was enslaved by pirates, escaped, prospered as a planter in Brazil…
Robinson Crusoe tells his own story: how he ran away to sea against his father's advice, was enslaved by pirates, escaped, prospered as a planter in Brazil and was then shipwrecked alone on an island off South America. This edition follows him closely through his first years there, when he keeps a journal and a calendar on a wooden post, falls ill with fever, finds a Bible in a sea chest, and draws up an account of his blessings and his miseries, like a merchant's ledger, until he learns to accept his fate. Then, after many years, he finds the print of a naked foot in the sand.
Context and significance
Daniel Defoe published the book in 1719 as if Crusoe had written it himself, and it was inspired in part by the Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk, who lived alone on a Pacific island for four years. Rousseau thought it the only book a boy needed in Emile. The library also has another edition of Robinson Crusoe.
About the author
Daniel Defoe (c. 1660–1731) was the son of a London butcher, became a merchant, went bankrupt more than once and turned to writing pamphlets. In 1703 he was put in the pillory for a satire on religious intolerance, and he later worked as a secret agent for the government in Scotland.
He was nearly sixty when he published Robinson Crusoe in 1719, and in the next few years he wrote Moll Flanders and A Journal of the Plague Year. He wrote hundreds of works in all, and is often called one of the fathers of the English novel.