Robinson Crusoe
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1890 editionAlso known as
The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner
First publication
1719, England
Literature form
Novel
Genres
Literary, adventure
Writing language
English
Author's country
England
Length
Approx. 140,000 words
Notable lines
I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, of a good family, though not of that country, my father being a foreigner of Bremen, who settled first at Hull. He got a good estate by merchandise, and leaving off his trade, lived afterwards at York, from whence he had married my mother, whose relations were named Robinson, a very good family in that country, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer; but, by the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called—nay we call ourselves and write our name—Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.
— First lines
All evils are to be considered with the good that is in them, and with what worse attends them.
Evil. I am cast upon a horrible desolate Island, void of all hope of Recovery.
Good. But I am alive, and not drown'd as all my Ship'd Company was.
It happen'd one day about noon going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surpriz'd with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. I stood like one thunderstruck, or as if I had seen an apparition; I listen'd, I look'd round me, I could hear nothing, nor see any thing; I went up to a rising ground to look farther; I went up the shore and down the shore, but it was all one; I could see no other impression but that one.
How frequently, in the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into.
All these things, with some very surprising incidents in some new adventures of my own, for ten years more, I may perhaps gave a farther account hereafter.
— Last line
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