Books by Daniel Defoe

Moll Flanders (Dover Thrift Editions)

by Daniel Defoe

One of the earliest picaresque novels in English, Moll Flanders has both captivated and shocked countless readers since it was first published in 1722. A masterpiece of fiction, written in the form of an autobiographical memoir, the novel describes Moll on the original title page as having been "Born in Newgate … Twelve Year a Whore, Five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent."
Daniel Defoe's roguish heroine tells the scandalous facts of her adventurous life with such simple and straightforward sincerity and with such a wealth of intimate detail that the reader is soon convinced that Moll must, indeed, be an authentic person.
Having been imprisoned for political offenses and having experienced severe economic losses in his own life, Defoe demonstrates early on in this novel how circumstances and a fear of poverty can drive one into a life of crime. He writes with authority when Moll speaks of poverty as a "frightful spectre."
An excellent candidate for classroom use, this classic of 18th-century fiction will entertain and enlighten general readers as well.

Robinson Crusoe (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

by Daniel Defoe

Thought to have been inspired by the true-life experiences of a marooned sailor, Robinson Crusoe tells the story of the sole survivor of a shipwreck, stranded on a Caribbean island, who prevails against all odds, enduring three decades of solitude while mastering both himself and his strange new world. First published in 1719, the novel has long been one of the English language's great adventure stories.
In the journal he shares with us, the endearing, goatskin-clad castaway recounts the details of his lonely existence and his many adventures, including a fierce battle with cannibals and a daring rescue of Friday, the man who becomes his trusted servant and companion. Defoe's brilliant and imaginative use of detail renders Crusoe's island world utterly convincing. In reclaiming his humanity from the savagery of his circumstances, the hero humbly acquires the qualities of courage, patience, ingenuity, and industry.
Hailed as the first great English novel, Robinson Crusoe spawned legions of imitations, none of which surpass the original. All readers with a taste for adventure will relish this inexpensive edition of one of the most popular and influential books ever written.

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe, Timothy Meis

Recounts the classic tale of a castaway's triumph over nature and over the fears, doubts, and loneliness of the human psyche, as shipwreck victim Robinson Crusoe struggles to survive alone in primitive surroundings before saving the life of a native. Reprint.

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe, Timothy Meis

Offers an abridged version of this adventure classic about a sailor marooned on a deserted island, enhanced with full-color illustrations.

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe, Timothy Meis

Thought to have been inspired by the true-life experiences of a marooned sailor, Robinson Crusoe tells the story of the sole survivor of a shipwreck, stranded on a Caribbean island, who prevails against all odds, enduring almost three decades of solitude while mastering both himself and his strange new world. First published in 1719, the novel has long been one of the English language's great adventure stories.
In the journal he shares with us, the endearing, goatskin-clad castaway recounts the details of this lonely existence and his many adventures, including a fierce battle with cannibals and a daring rescue of Friday, the man who becomes his trusted servant and companion. Defoe's brilliant and imaginative use of detail renders Crusoe's island world utterly convincing. In reclaiming his humanity from the savagery of his circumstances, the hero humbly acquires the qualities of courage, patience, ingenuity, and industry.
Hailed as the first great English novel, Robinson Crusoe spawned legions of imitations, none of which surpass the original. All readers with a taste for adventure will relish this inexpensive edition of one of the most popular and influential books ever written.

Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe, Timothy Meis

Defoe’s classic story of adventure and survival as a shipwrecked Englishman finds himself stranded on a deserted island.

After a fierce storm at sea, Robinson Crusoe is marooned on an uncharted island, with only a few bits of his wrecked ship’s flotsam and jetsam to sustain him. For more than two decades, he faces the wrath of nature and the struggle to stay alive with little more than his wits to save him. Then, following an encounter with cannibals, a tribesman named Friday becomes Crusoe’s only ally. As their relationship develops, the line between servant and friend begins to blur, and the possibility of freedom for them both at last looms on the horizon.

Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

‘I grew as impudent a Thief, and as dexterous as ever Moll Cut-Purse was’
Born and abandoned in Newgate Prison, Moll Flanders is forced to make her own way in life. She duly embarks on a career that includes husband-hunting, incest, bigamy, prostitution and pick-pocketing, until her crimes eventually catch up with her. One of the earliest and most vivid female narrators in the history of the English novel, Moll recounts her adventures with irresistible wit and candour—and enough guile that the reader is left uncertain whether she is ultimately a redeemed sinner or a successful opportunist. Based on the first edition of 1722, this volume includes a chronology, notes on currency and maps of London and Virginia in the late seventeenth century.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

Written in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe’s themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1721 edition printed by Chetwood in London, the only edition approved by Defoe.

Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

With an Introduction and Notes by R.T.Jones, Honorary Fellow of the University of York.

The novel follows the life of its eponymous heroine, Moll Flanders, through its many vicissitudes, which include her early seduction, careers in crime and prostitution, conviction for theft and transportation to the plantations of Virginia, and her ultimate redemption and prosperity in the New World.

Moll Flanders was one of the first social novels to be published in English and draws heavily on Defoe's experience of the topography and social conditions prevailing in the London of the late 17th century.

Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

Born to a petty thief in London’s notorious Newgate prison and determined to make her way in a rapacious and materialistic society, Moll Flanders recounts the “fortunes and misfortunes” of her turbulent life in this 1722 novel. Though Moll Flanders was shaped by the conventions of criminal biography, Defoe also drew on other literary traditions and his own rich background to create a remarkably original—and still controversial—work.

In addition to a critical introduction and substantial footnotes, this Broadview edition provides a wide range of writings by Defoe as well as contemporary responses to Moll Flanders. Other appendices include a selection of eighteenth-century writings on crime, prisons, and the Virginia colony.

A Journal of the Plague Year (Penguin Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

“The surprise ‘must-read’ for people facing the Covid-19 epidemic.” —The Telegraph

In 1665 the plague swept through London, claiming over 97,000 lives. Daniel Defoe was just five at the time of the plague, but he later called on his own memories, as well as his writing experience, to create this vivid chronicle of the epidemic and its victims. A Journal (1722) follows Defoe's fictional narrator as he traces the devastating progress of the plague through the streets of London. Here we see a city transformed: some of its streets suspiciously empty, some—with crosses on their doors—overwhelmingly full of the sounds and smells of human suffering. And every living citizen he meets has a horrifying story that demands to be heard.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Robinson Crusoe (Penguin Clothbound Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Daniel Defoe's great masterpiece, in a gorgeous new clothbound edition designed by the award-winning Coralie Bickford-Smith. These delectable and collectible Penguin editions are bound in high-quality colourful, tactile cloth with foil stamped into the design 'I walk'd about on the shore, lifting up my hands, and my whole being, as I may say, wrapt up in the contemplation of my deliverance ... reflecting upon all my comrades that were drown'd, and that there should not be one soul sav'd but my self ... ' Who has not dreamed of life on an exotic isle, far away from civilization? Here is the novel which has inspired countless imitations by lesser writers, none of which equal the power and originality of Defoe's famous book. Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being. First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe has been praised by such writers as James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Samuel Johnson as one of the greatest novels in the English language. 'Robinson Crusoe has a universal appeal, a story that goes right to the core of existence' Simon Armitage

Robinson Crusoe (Penguin Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

The original tale of a castaway struggling to survive on a remote desert island, and one of the first novels in English

The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is washed up on a desert island. In his journal he chronicles his daily battle to stay alive, as he conquers isolation, fashions shelter and clothes, enlists the help of a native islander who he names 'Friday', and fights off cannibals and mutineers. Written in an age of exploration and enterprise, it has been variously interpreted as an embodiment of British imperialist values, as a portrayal of 'natural man', or as a moral fable. But above all is a brilliant narrative, depicting Crusoe's transformation from terrified survivor to self-sufficient master of an island. This edition contains a full chronology of Defoe's life and times, explanatory notes, glossary and a critical introduction discussing Robinson Crusoe as a pioneering work of modern psychological realism.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Storm (Penguin Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

On the evening of November 26, 1703, a hurricane from the north Atlantic hammered into Britain: it remains the worst storm the nation has ever experienced. Eyewitnesses saw cows thrown into trees and windmills ablaze from the friction of their whirling sails—and some 8,000 people lost their lives. For Defoe, bankrupt and just released from prison for his "seditious" writings, the storm struck during one of his bleakest moments. But it also furnished him with material for his first book, and in this powerful depiction of suffering and survival played out against a backdrop of natural devastation we can trace the outlines of Defoe’s later masterpieces, A Journal of the Plague Year and Robinson Crusoe.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

A Journal of the Plague Year (Oxford World's Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Long considered the most compelling account of natural disaster in all of literature, Defoe's classic reconstruction of the Great Plague of 1665 scans the streets and alleyways of stricken London in an effort to record the extreme suffering of plague victims. At once horrifying and movingly compassionate, A Journal of the Plague Year offers a nightmare vision of the modern city laid to waste.

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders. (Oxford World's Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Moll Flanders recounts the story of her extraordinary life, from her birth in Newgate prison to her declining years in married prosperity. After being seduced in the home of her adoptive family she lives off her wits and her beauty, as a whore, 'five times a Wife', and a thief, and is eventually transported to Virginia for her crimes. Rich and penitent, Moll reflects on a world that is both good and evil, just as the reader both abhors and admires her. Arguably the first English novel, Moll Flanders is also a romance, its heroine in perpetual search for a lost familial paradise.

Robinson Crusoe (Oxford World's Classics)

by Daniel Defoe, Thomas Keymer

Daniel Defoe's enthralling story-telling and imaginatively detailed descriptions have ensured that his fiction masquerading as fact remains one of the most famous stories in English literature. On one level a simple adventure story, the novel also raises profound questions about moral and spiritual values, society, and man's abiding acquisitiveness. This new edition includes a scintillating Introduction and notes that illuminate the historical context.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Robinson Crusoe (Bantam Classic).

by Daniel Defoe

This classic story of a shipwrecked mariner on a deserted island is perhaps the greatest adventure in all of English literature. Fleeing from pirates, Robinson Crusoe is swept ashore in a storm possessing only a knife, a box of tobacco, a pipe-and the will to survive. His is the saga of a man alone: a man who overcomes self-pity and despair to reconstruct his life; who painstakingly teaches himself how to fashion a pot, bake bread, build a canoe; and who, after twenty-four agonizing years of solitude, discovers a human footprint in the sand... Consistently popular since its first publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe's story of human endurance in an exotic, faraway land exerts a timeless appeal. The first important English novel, Robinson Crusoe has taken its rightful place among the great myths of Western civilization.

Moll Flanders: Introduction by John Mullan (Everyman's Library Classics Series)

by Daniel Defoe

This is the spirited story of a survivor whose racy anecdotes and shady dealings only underline her essential warmth and goodness. But there is nothing sentimental about Moll, who presents herself warts and all. Though her adventures take her abroad, she remains the vivid creation of London.
Moll Flanders, pickpocket and prostitute–a mercantile genius trading in the oldest human commodity–has been for the past three centuries an enduring representative of reckless vitality combined with unshakable inner virtue. Daniel Defoe manages his story with such skill that our affection for his heroine increases with each astonishing sin she commits.

Moll’s adventures–possibly taken by Defoe from the story of some real criminal he met in Newgate, who “five times a wife, twelve year a thief, eight year a transported felon, at last grew rich, lived honest and died a penitent”–is told with the directness of narrative and reality of incident in which Defoe, often called the father of the novel, has never been equaled.

(Book Jacket Status: Not Jacketed)

Robinson Crusoe (Scribner's Illustrated Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

During one of his several adventurous voyages in the 1600's an Englishman becomes the sole survivor of a shipwreck and lives for nearly thirty years on a deserted island.

Pirates

by Daniel Defoe, Harry Knill

A history of the still-not-lost calling including lady pirates' too. A picture of each pirate is opposite text by authorities of the time.

Robinson Crusoe (Union Square Kids Unabridged Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Nearly four centuries after it was written, Robinson Crusoe remains the quintessential story of a man shipwrecked and forced to rely on his own wits. Against his parents wishes, Crusoe sets off for adventure on the high seas-until a storm leaves him stranded on a seemingly deserted island. There, alone and despairing, he gradually learns to survive off the land and create what he needs; he even finds human companionship. But will Crusoe ever see his home again? One of the most popular books of all time, Robinson Crusoe will appeal to a new generation of readers.

Robinson Crusoe (Scribner Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Dive in to the ultimate tale of shipwreck and survival in this illustrated, finely crafted keepsake edition of the classic adventure story that has thrilled readers for nearly three centuries.

After a fierce storm at sea, Robinson Crusoe is marooned on an uncharted island, with only a few bits of his wrecked ship’s flotsam and jetsam to sustain him. For more than two decades, he faces the wrath of nature and the struggle to stay alive with little more than his wits to save him. Then, following an encounter with cannibals, a tribesman named Friday becomes Crusoe’s only ally. As their relationship develops, the line between servant and friend begins to blur, and the possibility of freedom for them both at last looms on the horizon.

This collectible edition of a beloved adventure includes a soft-touch cover, gold foiling, and luminous illustrations from N.C. Wyeth, whose oil paintings perfectly depict the roiling seas, baking sun, and vast expanse of open space.

The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (Calico Illustrated Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

In Daniel Defoe's classic tale of survival and courage, Robinson Crusoe is shipwrecked on a deserted island. He uses his wits and resources to build shelter, farm, and survive for twenty-eight years! Crusoe's adventures surviving loneliness, taming wild animals, and battling mutineers have been adapted for young readers. Crusoe's strength, courage, and faith are tested in the Calico Illustrated Classics adaptation of Defoe's The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson Crusoe: 300th Anniversary Edition (Restless Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Restless Classics presents the Three-Hundredth Anniversary Edition of Robinson Crusoe, the classic Caribbean adventure story and foundational English novel, with new illustrations by Eko and an introduction by Jamaica Kincaid that contextualizes the book for our globalized, postcolonial era.
Three centuries after Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe, this gripping tale of a castaway who spends thirty years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being ultimately rescued, remains a classic of the adventure genre and is widely considered the first great English novel.

But the book also has much to teach us, in retrospect, about entrenched attitudes of colonizers toward the colonized that still resound today. As celebrated Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid writes in her bold new introduction, “The vivid, vibrant, subtle, important role of the tale of Robinson Crusoe, with his triumph of individual resilience and ingenuity wrapped up in his European, which is to say white, identity, has played in the long, uninterrupted literature of European conquest of the rest of the world must not be dismissed or ignored or silenced.”

Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe Classic Novel, (Deserted Island Shipwreck Tale, Required Literature), Ribbon Page Marker, Perfect for Gifting

by Daniel Defoe, Paper Mill Press

Paper Mill Press brings new life to Daniel Defoe's classic with this stunning reprint. Featuring a suede-like custom cover, beautiful metallic foiling and a ribbon marker, this book was made for gifting.
Shipwrecked on a deserted island for twenty-eight years, Robinson Crusoe recounts his experiences with cannibals, captives, and mutineers before finally being rescued. Filled with adventure and suspense, Crusoe demonstrates heightened self-awareness while relying on his instincts for survival. This riveting novel is sure to have readers on the edge of their seats. A staple for any teen or young adult reader.

Robinson Crusoe (Chiltern Classic)

by Daniel Defoe

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The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (An Illustrated Classic)

by Daniel Defoe

Escape the Island of Despair with Robinson Crusoe!

Pirates, shipwrecks, and being stranded on an island doesn’t stop Robinson Crusoe in his quest for adventure on the high seas. Originally presented as a true account, Daniel Defoe’s novel made quite a stir in 1719 and became one of the most widely published books in history, spawning enough imitations that it inspired its own genre, the Robinsonade. Bound in a beautiful cloth cover with full-color illustrations inside and foil stamping on the front, this exciting volume in our Illustrated Classics series will be a welcome addition to any home library.

Robinson Crusoe An Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism

by Daniel Defoe

Michael Shinagel has collated the reprint with all six authorizededitions published by Taylor in 1719 to achieve a text that is faithfulto Defoe's original edition.  Annotations assist the reader with obscurewords and idioms, biblical references, and nautical terms.

"Contexts" helps the reader understand the novel's historical andreligious significance.  Included are four contemporary accounts ofmarooned men, Defoe's autobiographical passages on the novel'sallegorical foundation, and aspects of the Puritan emblematic traditionessential for understanding the novel's religious aspects.

"Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Opinions" is a comprehensive studyof early estimations by prominent literary and political figures,including Alexander Pope, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Samuel Johnson, SamuelTaylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Edgar Allen Poe, Thomas BabingtonMacaulay, Charles Dickens, Karl Marx, and John Stuart Mill.

"Twentieth-Century Criticism" is a collection of fourteen essays (fiveof them new to the Second Edition) that presents a variety ofperspectives on Robinson Crusoe by Virginia Woolf, Ian Watt, EricBerne, Maximillian E. Novak, Frank Budgen, James Joyce, George A.Starr, J. Paul Hunter, James Sutherland, John J. Richetti, LeopoldDamrosch, Jr., John Bender, Michael McKeon, and Carol Houlihan Flynn.

A Chronology of Defoe's life and work and an updated SelectedBibliography are also included.

Colonel Jack (Broadview Editions)

by Daniel Defoe

Long dismissed by critics as a novel of merely historical interest, Colonel Jack is one of Daniel Defoe’s most entertaining, revealing, and complex works. It is the supposed autobiography of an English gentleman who begins life as a child of the London streets. He and his brothers are brought up as pickpockets and highwaymen, but Jack seeks to improve himself. Kidnapped and taken to America, he becomes first a slave, then an overseer on plantations in Maryland. Jack’s story is one of dramatic turns of fortune that ultimately lead to a life of law-abiding prosperity as a plantation owner.
Historical appendices relate to eighteenth-century Virginia and Maryland and to contemporary crime, punishment, and imprisonment.

Moll Flanders (Oxford World's Classics)

by Daniel Defoe, G. A. Starr, Linda Bree

A tour-de-force of writing by Daniel Defoe, this extraordinary novel tells the vivid and racy tale of a woman's experience in the seamy side of life in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England and America. Born in Newgate prison, and seduced in the home of her adoptive family, Moll learns to live off her wits, defying the traditional depiction of women as helpless victims. First published in 1722, and one of the earliest novels in the English language, its account of opportunism, endurance, and survival speaks as strongly to us today as it did to its original readers. This new edition offers a critically edited text and a wide-ranging introduction by Linda Bree, who sheds light on the circumstances out of which the novel grew, its strengths and weaknesses as fiction, and the social and cultural issues examined in the novel. In addition, her comprehensive notes clarify meanings, allusions, and other references. Finally, the book includes a glossary, a note on money, and maps of England, London, and the American colonies.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A Journal of the Plague Year

by Daniel Defoe

Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year is an extraordinary account of the devastation and human suffering inflicted on the city of London by the Great Plague of 1665. Purporting to be an eye-witness, Defoe's fictional narrator recounts in vivid detail the rising death toll and the transformation of the city as its citizens flee and those who remain live in fear and despair. Above all it is the stories of appalling human suffering and grief that give Defoe's extraordinary fiction its compelling historical veracity. The lively Introduction relates the Journal to Defoe's best-known work, Robinson Crusoe, and draws on recent research into the publishing environment of the first edition. It considers the portrayal of London, depicted by Defoe as it was before the Great Fire, and to the book's device of fiction masquerading as fact. This edition also includes comprehensive explanatory notes, a map of Defoe's London, and a complete topographical index that enables the reader to track the Journal's complex references to London's streets, churches, alleyways, and prisons both before and after the Great Fire of 1666.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

Moll Flanders (Signet Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

As Moll Flanders struggles for survival amid the harsh social realities of seventeenth-century England, there is but one thing she is determined to avoid: the deadly snare of poverty. On the twisting path that leads from her birth in Newgate Prison to her final prosperous respectability, love is regarded as worth no more than its weight in gold; and such matters as bigamy, incest, theft, and prostitution occasion but a brief blush before they are reckoned in terms of profit and loss. Yet so pure is her candor, so healthy her animal appetites, so indomitable her resiliency through every vicissitude of fortune, that this extraordinary woman emerges as one of the most appealing heroines in English literature.

With a New Introduction and with an Afterword by Regina Barreca

Robinson Crusoe and the Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (Adlard Coles Maritime Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Running away to sea to escape a legal career, Robinson Crusoe ends up having rather more excitement than he bargained for in this infamous adventure yarn by Daniel Defoe. After working as a successful merchant and then a plantation owner, Crusoe is lured to sea again as part of a slave-gathering expedition only to find himself shipwrecked off the coast of Trinidad in his third and most famous role--the original castaway.

Salvaging what he can from his wreck, Crusoe establishes an existence on the island, adopting a pet parrot and goat and saving a man named Friday from cannibals. When he eventually seizes a ship from mutineers and sails back to England, he find that things have changed in the three decades that he's been away . . .

Published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe is the first English example of realistic fiction. It was a popular innovation, being reprinted four times in its first year and going on to have a huge influence on writers as diverse as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Beatrix Potter.

Unusually, this edition also includes The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, where the action returns to the island and other exotic locations including Madagascar, Cambodia, and Siberia. There is also a map showing the location of Robinson Crusoe Island and Crusoe's onward journey.

Moll Flanders: A Norton Critical Edition (Norton Critical Editions)

by Daniel Defoe

Moll Flanders is one of the best-selling novels of all time. 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.

A Journal of the Plague Year (Norton Critical Editions)

by Daniel Defoe

This Norton Critical Edition of one of Defoe’s most important works reprints the 1722 text, the only edition published in Defoe’s lifetime. The authoritative text has been fully annotated and makes available a perennially popular novel, one that has often been mistaken for an actual eyewitness account of the last great plague in England.

"Backgrounds" encourages comparison of 1665 documents with those of the early 1720s, when England feared a new outbreak of the plague.

Included are official government orders and newspaper accounts as well as writings by Defoe, John Graunt, the College of Physicians, and others.

"Contexts" includes eight comparative pieces united by the theme of a community in crisis.

From Thucydides to Boccaccio to modern accounts by Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Susan Sontag, this collection represents some of the most celebrated observers and critics in western civilization who have seen what plagues reveal about human nature.

"Criticism" reprints seven of the best essays on the novel, including interpretations by Sir Walter Scott, Maximillian E. Novak, John J. Richetti, and John Bender, among others.

A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

A Journal of the Plague Year (Modern Library Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Defoe's account of the bubonic plague that swept London in 1665 remains as vivid as it is harrowing. Based on Defoe's own childhood memories and prodigious research, A Journal of the Plague Year walks the line between fiction, history, and reportage. In meticulous and unsentimental detail it renders the daily life of a city under siege; the often gruesome medical precautions and practices of the time; the mass panics of a frightened citizenry; and the solitary travails of Defoe's narrator, a man who decides to remain in the city through it all, chronicling the course of events with an unwavering eye. Defoe's Journal remains perhaps the greatest account of a natural disaster ever written.

This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the original edition published in 1722.

Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (Oxford World's Classics)

by Daniel Defoe

Roxana (1724), Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own "wicked" life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past. This edition uses the rare first edition text, with a new Introduction, detailed Notes, textual history and a map of contemporary London.

About the Series: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the broadest spectrum of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, voluminous notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.

A Journal of the Plague Year (Dover Thrift Editions: Classic Novels)

by Daniel Defoe

The haunting cry of "Bring out your dead!" by a bell-ringing collector of 17th-century plague victims has filled readers across the centuries with cold terror. The chilling cry survives in historical consciousness largely as a result of this classic 1722 account of the epidemic of bubonic plague — known as the Black Death — that ravaged England in 1664–1665.
Actually written nearly 60 years later by Daniel Defoe, the Journal is narrated by a Londoner named "H. F.," who allegedly lived through the devastating effects of the pestilence and produced this eye witness account. Drawing on his considerable talents as both journalist and novelist, Defoe reconstructed events both historically and fictionally, incorporating realistic, memorable details that enable the novel to surpass even firsthand accounts in its air of authenticity. This verisimilitude is all the more remarkable since Defoe was only five years old when the actual events took place. Long a staple of college literature courses, A Journal of the Plague Year will fascinate students, teachers, and general readers alike.

Classic Starts®: Robinson Crusoe

by Daniel Defoe

An abridged and illustrated chapter book retelling of Robinson Crusoe, part of the bestselling Classic Starts series that has sold more than 8 million copies!



Young and impulsive, Robinson Crusoe thinks only of adventure and comradery when he runs away to become a sailor. Instead, he finds himself marooned on a deserted island, the sole survivor of a horrible shipwreck. Follow the castaway's absorbing struggle for survival, as seen through his own eyes.

The Fortunate Mistress (Roxana)

by Daniel Defoe

'I liv'd indeed like a Queen; or if you will have me confess, that my Condition had still the Reproach of a Whore, I may say, I was sure, the Queen of Whores.'

Left destitute by her husband, the heroine of Defoe's final novel has to choose between her virtue and her life. Choosing survival, she makes her way as a kept woman and courtesan. The Fortunate Mistress (1724), also known under the title Roxana, tells the story of how she climbs society's ladder by dint of her own enterprise, shedding and gaining multiple identities as she moves through the worlds of business and finance, and across the trade capitals of Europe. Amassing a fortune, her taste for men and luxuries veers increasingly to the aristocratic and exotic, culminating when she dances before the King at a masquerade dressed in the garb of a Turkish Sultana--at which point she is granted the name by which she is known to history, Roxana. Despite her rise, Roxana's past never recedes from view, and her choices eventally begin to weigh on her, prompting an excruciating self-reckoning that is only compounded as the children she has abandoned return, threatening to expose this past to public view. Defoe resists easy solutions in a sprawling and complex novel which shows an unprecedented degree of psychological realism: readers experience the interplay of circumstance, need, desire, religion, and social convention that can allow the development of a moral sense, or conspire to suppress it.

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