Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is a fictional autobiography of the title character--a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story was perhaps influenced by Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on the Pacific island called "Mas a Tierra" (in 1966 its name was changed to Robinson Crusoe Island), Chile. The details of Crusoe's island were probably based on the Caribbean island of Tobago, since that island lies a short distance north of the Venezuelan coast near the mouth of the Orinoco river, in sight of Trinidad. It is also likely that Defoe was inspired by the Latin or English translations of Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan, an earlier novel also set on a desert island.
- ISBN10 1105795748
- ISBN13 9781105795749
- Publish Date 24 May 2012
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Lulu.com
- Format eBook (OEB)
- Language English