Robinson Crusoe Illustrated and Unabridged

"Robinson Crusoe" begins as Robinson, torn between his safe home and his hunger for adventure, breaks away from his loving father and sails into the unknown. After a series of harrowing escapes, Robinson is shipwrecked on a desert island. His lively first-person account, as told in "Robinson Crusue," shows how his intelligence and education help him survive for many years, and how he used technology, including guns and tools salvaged from the ship. He sets up a home, reads the Bible, finds a pet parrot, and even devises a calendar to keep track of time. When savages arrive on the island, Robinson uses his guns to get rid of them and rescues one of their captives, who he names Friday. Defoe based "Robinson Crusoe" on the true adventures of Alexander Selkirk (who spent four or five years on an island in the South Pacific) and accounts of other castaways of the time. "Robinson Crusoe," which is one of the first novels ever written, is still the favorite of many in our day.