Macmillan Collector’s Library: Robinson Crusoe

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Daniel Defoe was probably born in London in 1660 and we know little of his early life beyond his parentage - his father, James Foe, was a butcher - and that his childhood home was one of the few buildings in his area to survive the Great Fire of London in 1666. His adult life was eventful and saw Foe (who adopted the pen name Defoe in 1703) rise through the ranks as a merchant, gain notoriety for pamphleteering and flung into prison as a result, achieve renown for his journalism, and become a spy for the government. He was sixty when Robinson Crusoe, his first work of fiction, was published to great acclaim. Other novels followed, including Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year and Roxana, and Defoe continued writing until his death in 1731.

Shipwrecked off the coast of Trinidad, Robinson Crusoe - a young man with a thirst for adventure - finds himself washed up on a remote tropical island with nothing but a few tools and animals for company. Cast away for thirty years, he must battle cannibals, mutineers and the elements in a tale so convincing that many readers at the time believed it to be non-fiction. A true page-turner, Robinson Crusoe is one of the most enduring novels in the English language and its unique blend of extraordinary realism and brilliant drama continues to delight readers the world over. This Macmillan Collector's Library edition of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe features illustrations by the celebrated Victorian caricaturist George Cruikshank, and an afterword by writer and journalist Ned Halley. Designed to appeal to the booklover, the Macmillan Collector's Library is a series of beautiful gift editions of much loved classic titles. Macmillan Collector's Library are books to love and treasure.

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