With an Introduction and
Notes by Doreen Roberts, Rutherford College, University of Kent
at Canterbury
From its first publication in 1719, Robinson Crusoe has been printed
in over 700 editions. It has inspired almost every conceivable kind
of imitation and variation, and been the subject of plays, opera, cartoons,
and computer games. The character of Crusoe has entered the consciousness
of each succeeding generation as readers add their own interpretation
to the adventures so thrillingly 'recorded' by Defoe.
Praised by eminent figures such as Coleridge, Rousseau and Wordsworth,
this perennially popular book was cited by Karl Marx in Das Kapital
to illustrate economic theory. However it is readers of all ages over
the last 280 years who have given Robinson Crusoe its abiding position
as a classic tale of adventure.