Robinson Crusoe

Robinson Crusoe is the classic castaway novel by Daniel Defoe published in 1719, and it is considered by some to be first real novel in English. It has inspired adventure lovers and pioneer types for nearly 300 years: its images of the shipwrecked Crusoe going about his daily routine of growing corn, raising goats, and generally subsisting on a desert island for 28 years. But things spice up a bit when a band of cannibals show up to the island like it's their local Applebee's. Defoe's novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) tells of a man's shipwreck on a deserted island and his subsequent adventures. The author based part of his narrative on the story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years stranded on the island of Juan Fernandez. He may have also been inspired by the Latin or English translation of a book by the Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath Ibn Tufail, who was known as "Abubacer" in Europe. The Latin edition of the book was entitled Philosophus Autodidactus and it was an earlier novel that is also set on a deserted island.