Description

“ The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe / La Vie et les Aventures Surprenantes de Robinson Crusoe; contenant son retour dans son Isle, ses autres nouveaux voyages et ses réflexions ” by Daniel Defoe*. Tome II. Published/printed by Seguin Freres in Avignon during the year MDCCCIX (1809). Illustrated with a fold-out map, as well as with 4 engraved plates. Leather binding. Text in french. 368 pages, 17 x 11 x 3 cm. Acceptable/Good condition in general (inner binding issues, binding not so tight, book does not open perfectly, needs to be handled with care to avoid its condition deterioration, merely worn cover where stains, scratches, rubbed/discolored/splotchy parts, cracks and holes on spine, fragile parts and from which pieces are missing from boards' surface/corners/edges/spine, foxing, yellow/brown stains, few creases, minor piece of paper missing from few leaves' corners/margin not affecting text, some leaves more-foxed-than-the-average, few water-stains too, paper merely creasy and worn on map where tiny tears and creases on its margins, &c). Shipping costs via registered mail (tracking number provided): $16. Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe that was first published in 1719. The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character-a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Venezuela, encountering Native Americans, captives and mutineers before being rescued. The story was perhaps influenced by Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on the Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (in 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile. The details of Crusoe's island were probably based on the Caribbean island of Tobago, since that island lies a short distance north of the Venezuelan coast near the mouth of the Orinoco river, in sight of Trinidad. It is also likely that Defoe was inspired by the Latin or English translations of Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, an earlier novel also set on a desert island. Another source for Defoe's novel may have been Robert Knox's account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon in 1659 in "An Historical Account of the Island Ceylon," Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons (Publishers to the University), 1911. * Daniel Defoe (ca. 1659/1661-1731), born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, and pamphleteer, who gained fame for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularise the form in Britain and along with others such as Richardson, is among the founders of the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than 500 books, pamphlets and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). He was also a pioneer of economic journalism. Robinson Crusoe was frequently revised for educational purposes during the period when the exposition of pedagogical theories was becoming one of the leading pastimes of society. The most successful adaptation was probably that of Feutry, which appeared at Amsterdam in 1766. Abridged directly from the translation of Saint-Hyacinthe and Van Effen, Feutry’s version was in general quite meritorious, though it failed to convey an adequate impression of Defoe’s mentality. A rival adaptation was published in the following year by Montreille, who failed however to gain the approval of the critics.