Robinson Crusoe

350 Pages·2007·2.25 MB·English

by  Defoe

Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide in
Oxford New York
Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi
Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi
New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto
With offices in
Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece
Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore
South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam
Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press
in the UK and in certain other countries
Published in the United States
by Oxford University Press Inc., New York
Introduction © Thomas Keymer 2007
Editorial material © Thomas Keymer and James Kelly 2007
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
Database right Oxford University Press (maker)
First published as World’s Classics paperback 1983
Reissued as an Oxford World’s Classics paperback 1998
New edition published 2007
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior
permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by
law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights
organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above
should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address
above
You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Defoe, Daniel, 1661?—1731.
Robinson Crusoe / Daniel Defoe; edited with an introduction by Thomas
Keymer
and notes by Thomas Keymer and James Kelly.—New ed.
p. cm—(Oxford world’s classics)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN–13: 978–0–19–283342–6 (alk. paper)
ISBN–10: 0–19–283342–1 (alk. paper)
1. Crusoe, Robinson (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Survival after airplane
accidents,
shipwrecks, etc—Fiction. 3. Castaways—Fiction. 4. Islands—Fiction. I.
Keymer, Tom.
II. Kelly, James William. III. Title.
PR3403.A2K49 2007
823′.5—dc22
2006026022
Typeset in Ehrhardt
by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk
Printed in Great Britain
on acid-free paper by
Clays Ltd, St Ives plc
ISBN 0–19–283342–1 978–0–19–283342–6
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
For over 100 years Oxford World’s Classics have brought readers closer to
the world’s great literature. Now with over 700 titles—from the 4,000-year-
old myths of Mesopotamia to the twentieth century’s greatest novels—the
series makes available lesser-known as well as celebrated writing.
The pocket-sized hardbacks of the early years contained introductions by
Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, and other literary figures
which enriched the experience of reading. Today the series is recognized
for its fine scholarship and reliability in texts that span world literature,
drama and poetry, religion, philosophy and politics. Each edition includes
perceptive commentary and essential background information to meet the
changing needs of readers.
Refer to the Table of Contents to navigate through the material in this
Oxford World’s Classics ebook. Use the asterisks (*) throughout the text
to access the hyperlinked Explanatory Notes.
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
DANIEL DEFOE
Robinson Crusoe
Edited with an Introduction by
THOMAS KEYMER
and Notes by
THOMAS KEYMER and JAMES KELLY
OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
ROBINSON CRUSOE
DANIEL DEFOE (1660–1731) was born in London, the third child of James Foe, a
tallow chandler, and his wife Alice. He attended Charles Morton’s dissenting
academy in Newington Green before establishing himself as a hosier and general
merchant in Cornhill, and married Mary Tuffley in 1684. A year later he joined
the Duke of Monmouth’s disastrous rebellion against James II, and was lucky to
escape the ‘Bloody Assizes’ following Monmouth’s defeat at Sedgemoor.
Persistent overinvestment precipitated his bankruptcy in 1692, after which he
turned to writing.
Defoe’s first great success came with his satirical poem The True-Born
Englishman (1701). The Shortest Way with the Dissenters (1702), an audacious
parody of High Anglican extremism, brought him a charge of seditious libel and
he was briefly imprisoned. Defoe was employed by successive ministries as a
polemicist until about 1717, and continued to write prolifically thereafter in a
range of fields including politics, economics, and religion.
Between 1719 and 1724, Defoe produced the pioneering fictional narratives
on which his reputation has come to rest. The first part of Robinson Crusoe was
published on 25 April 1719, with a sequel in August. A third part, Serious
Reflections, followed in 1720, in which year Memoirs of a Cavalier and Captain
Singleton were also published. Moll Flanders, Colonel Jack, and A Journal of
the Plague Year appeared in 1722 and Roxana in 1724, to be followed by further
major works of non-fiction, including A Tour thro’ the Whole Island of Great
Britain (1724–6) and The Complete English Tradesman (1725–7). Defoe died
following a stroke on 24 April 1731 while in hiding from a persistent creditor.
He is buried in Bunhill Fields.
THOMAS KEYMER is Chancellor Jackman Professor of English at the University
of Toronto and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne’s College, Oxford. His
books include Richardson’s Clarissa and the Eighteenth-Century Reader
(Cambridge, 1992), Sterne, the Moderns, and the Novel (Oxford, 2002), and The
Cambridge Companion to English Literature from 1740 to 1830, co-edited with
Jon Mee (Cambridge, 2004).
JAMES KELLY has published widely on Defoe, voyage narrative, and related
topics, and serves as a council member of the Hakluyt Society. He is Senior
Research Fellow and Lecturer in English at Worcester College, Oxford.