This Norton Critical Edition is again based on the first edition text (1722), the only text known to be Defoe's own. It is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations and the editor's essay outlining the novel's textual history.
"Contexts" collects related documents on criminal transport, contemporary accounts of lives of crime, and colonial laws as they applied to servants, slaves, and runaways.
"Criticism" includes eleven interpretations by Juliet McMaster, Everett Zimmerman, Maximillian E. Novak, Henry Knight Miller, Ian A. Bell, Carol Kay, Paula B. Backscheider, John Rietz, Ann Louise Kibbie, John Richetti, and Ellen Pollak.
A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.
- ISBN10 0393978621
- ISBN13 9780393978629
- Publish Date 16 January 2004 (first published 1 December 1955)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint WW Norton & Co
- Edition Critical edition
- Format Paperback
- Pages 544
- Language English