Reviews: (by author)

DeFoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe. Illus. N.C. Wyeth. Abridged by Timothy Meis. New York: Atheneum (Simon & Schuster), 2003 (illustrations first published in
1920). $18.95. 0-689-85104-9.

In its skillfully abridged form, the story of the shipwrecked Robinson Crusoe is likely to appeal to old-ish young readers right from the opening chapter, in which Robinson is entreated by his father not to leave his hometown of York, but to stay and let his father set him up in business. Moved at first, the young Robinson soon forgets his father's plea and sets off on an ocean voyage. He quickly realizes his decision is, like many made by the young, "irrational," but nonetheless his first few voyages are profitable for him. He doesn't feel any consequence until he is captured by Moors and sold into slavery. He escapes but immediately sells his companion Xury to the captain of the ship that rescues him, evidently not a disturbing sale in those times, even for the very religious. In Brazil, he becomes prosperous as a sugar cane plantation owner—but wanderlust again overwhelms him. Eight years after ignoring his father's entreaties, in 1659 he sets off in a ship doomed for shipwreck.

At this point, Crusoe's first person narrative shifts from adventure story to survival story, one of the most famous in the world's literature. Alone now, he brings to the shore of his unexplored new island home as much valuable stuff from the ship as he can manage, including many useful tools and a musket, and begins his solitary life—often rethinking the warning his father had given him long ago. He names his island "The Island of Despair," but being a devout Christian, he does not lose hope. Earthquake, monsoon, daily Bible reading, the companionship of his dog, cat, and parrot—and much hard work—become routine, and soon Crusoe longs for escape. Being a self-reliant, liberty-loving Englishman leads him to build a canoe but his attempt to escape the prison of his island fails. Years pass until he sees the footprint—a human one, the first he has seen. Danger? Companionship? The former is indicated by a pile of human bones he next finds, but it is not for many more years that he encounters living human being—"savages" who chase a captive obviously intended for the cannibals' dinner. Crusoe saves him and names him Friday. Then he saves a Spaniard and Friday's father and his fortunes change when the Spaniard's ship returns. Ultimately, after fighting mutinous sailors, the Crusoe gang wins the ship. Twenty-eight years after being shipwrecked, 35 years after leaving home, Crusoe sets foot again on British soil, and here his story ends.

The unabridged Defoe book is hundreds of pages and replete with the long pious passages that, for the most part, little suit the contemporary reader. With this abridgement, the famous story is reintroduced to modern readers.

The illustrations by N.C. Wyeth, dating from 1920, make this volume a treasure. Wyeth illustrated many of the old Scribners Classics with his powerful oil paintings. Similarly, his illustrated Treasure Island has been reissued with an abridged text.

Alida Allison, October 2003

Back to Reviews D-F