This classic story of a shipwrecked mariner on a deserted island is
perhaps the greatest adventure in all of English literature. Fleeing
from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm possessing only
a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe-and the will to survive. His is the
saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to
reconstruct his life; who painstakingly teaches himself how to fashion a
pot, bake bread, build a canoe; and who, after twenty-four agonizing
years of solitude, discovers a human footprint in the sand...
Consistently popular since its first publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe's
story of human endurance in an exotic, faraway land exerts a timeless
appeal. The first important English novel, "Robinson Crusoe" has taken
its rightful place among the great myths of Western civilization.