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October 2021 Book of the Month | Michael Morpugo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom is just one of the very many stories for adults and children alike that have been inspired by Daniel Defoe’s classic shipwreck story. Written over 300 years ago, the story of Robinson Crusoe, an impulsive young man who runs away to sea against the best efforts of his parents to stop him, is packed full of gripping action as Crusoe survives the worst the elements throw at him before he is shipwrecked on an apparently uninhabited island. The story of Crusoe’s life on an island is a lyrical study of a place as well as an inspiring story of one man’s resourcefulness. In this adapted edition award-winning illustrator Robert Ingpen’s illustrations bring Daniel Defoe’s classic story to life in timeless images.
The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is stranded on an uninhabited island far away from any shipping routes. With patience and ingenuity, he transforms his island into a tropical paradise. For twenty-four years he has no human company, until one Friday, he rescues a prisoner from a boat of cannibals. With Robinson Crusoe, Defoe wrote what is regarded as the first English novel, and created one of the most popular and enduring myths in literature. Written in an age of exploration and enterprise, it has been variously interpreted as an embodiment of British imperialist values, as a portrayal of 'natural man', or as a moral fable. But above all it is a brilliant narrative.
Born in Newgate prison and abandoned six months later, Moll's drive to find and hold on to a secure place in society propels her through incest, adultery, bigamy, prostitution and a resourceful career as a thief ('the greatest Artist of my time') before she is apprehended and returned to Newgate. If Moll Flanders is on one level a Puritan's tale of sin and repentance, through self-made, self-reliant Moll its rich subtext conveys all the paradoxes and amoralities of the struggle for property and power in Defoe's newly individualistic society.
Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was almost always published together with The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Only after 1950 was the first volume printed alone-a shorter work for some classes. But in addition to fulfilling the promise of the first volume, The Farther Adventures is an exciting adventure novel by itself. Crusoe returns to his island to learn about his colony, and then travels to Madagascar, India, and China before returning to England after some exciting encounters. Complete with an introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes, this is an edition like no other.
Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was almost always published together with The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Only after 1950 was the first volume printed alone-a shorter work for some classes. But in addition to fulfilling the promise of the first volume, The Farther Adventures is an exciting adventure novel by itself. Crusoe returns to his island to learn about his colony, and then travels to Madagascar, India, and China before returning to England after some exciting encounters. Complete with an introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes, this is an edition like no other.
Little treasures, the FLAME TREE COLLECTABLE CLASSICS are chosen to create a delightful and timeless home library. Each stunning, gift edition features deluxe cover treatments, ribbon markers, luxury endpapers and gilded edges. The unabridged text is accompanied by a Glossary of Victorian and Literary terms produced for the modern reader. After a dramatic shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is a castaway on a tropical island for 28 years. Defoe's classic tale features a series of events involving mutineers and prisoners, while Crusoe wrestles with his own solitude. Probably the first true novel in the English language.
October 2021 Book of the Month | Michael Morpugo’s Kensuke’s Kingdom is just one of the very many stories for adults and children alike that have been inspired by Daniel Defoe’s classic shipwreck story. Written over 300 years ago, the story of Robinson Crusoe, an impulsive young man who runs away to sea against the best efforts of his parents to stop him, is packed full of gripping action as Crusoe survives the worst the elements throw at him before he is shipwrecked on an apparently uninhabited island. The story of Crusoe’s life on an island is a lyrical study of a place as well as an inspiring story of one man’s resourcefulness. In this adapted edition award-winning illustrator Robert Ingpen’s illustrations bring Daniel Defoe’s classic story to life in timeless images.
The Essay upon Projects was written during the years immediately following two of Defoe's serious brushed with the law. In 1692, #17,000 in debt, he was declared bankrupt. After a brief imprisonment and during the time he subsequently spent hiding from authorities and creditors, he began work on various projects which he thought would make England a better nation and, were they approved and acted upon by the government, bring him fame and fortune. Composed piecemeal, the Essay offers a wide ranging series of proposals for radical social reform, while attempting to gain some dignity for what Defoe called, in another context, the despicable art of projecting. Among Defoe's schemes, predictable enough, was a project for the reform of his nation's bankruptcy laws, a project over which Defoe, in his own words, waxed hot . Five years after he began it, Defoe published the work. By 1697, he had righted himself publicly and financially, having served as Accomptant to the Commissioners of the Glass Duty in King William's government and having profited from his brick and tile factory in Tilbury. The work represents new beginnings for Defoe as a political and literary figure, new assertions of principles, new ventures on public terrain. At its most utopian, it was an effort at charting a new future for England - a combination of social engineering and economic scheming. It is a commonplace to say of science fiction that while purporting to be about other worlds and often about future time, it is invariable about our present life on earth. Similarly, it may be said of An Essay upon Projects that although Defoe's work treated future projects and possibilities, they were very much rooted in the events of the recent past and the present. Read against the swarm of proposals published during the 1690s (usually in pamphlet form), the text seems thoroughly rooted in the efforts at attempting to solve the economic problems of the late-17th century. On the other hand, Defoe enjoyed assuming the role of a prophet, and if some of his schemes seemed to foreshadow his future developments, whether in his time or ours, he would hardly have been reluctant to take credit for his ingenuity and farsightedness.
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