Books

First collected edition, which "did much to stabilize the canon of Defoe's novels for the 19th-century" (Kerr, p. 102). Although Walter Scott's name does not appear anywhere in the volumes, he was brought in as editor by his long-term collaborators Ballantyne. Both Roxana and Moll Flanders were omitted from the edition, likely on the grounds of morality. Kristian Celia Jane Kerr, Novel Classism: British Fiction and the Traditions of Antiquity, University of Chicago doctoral dissertation, 2016. Twelve vols, octavo (156 x 99 mm). Contemporary calf, flat spines tooled in gilt with red labels and black morocco onlay bands, triple gilt fillet and blind roll to boards, Shell pattern marbled paper endpapers and edges, green bookmarkers. Woodcut plates and woodcut vignettes to part title pages of Robinson Crusoe. Near-contemporary armorial bookplates to front pastedowns of Alexander James Dennistoun-Brown (d. 1890) of Balloch Castle, Dunbartonshire. Contemporary bookbinder's ticket of popular Glaswegian firm Carss to verso of vol. I front free endpaper. Bindings lightly rubbed, superficial split to foot of vol. IV joint, internally fresh. A well-preserved set.

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, is one of the earliest and most influential novels in the history of English literature. It 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 is widely perceived as a comment on the British Imperialism of the age and the emerging ideology of the 'self-made man', and it reflects on the author's vast array of experiences.