Books

2 Volumes. large 8vo. pp. 1 p.l., v-viii, 405; v, 446. 2 engraved titles, engraved portrait of Defoe by Medland, & 15 engraved plates by Medland after designs by Thomas Stothard (incl. 2 frontis.). contemporary diced calf, rebacked (wear to covers & corners, some browning & foxing, plates offset, repair to inner margin of 1 leaf). Large-Paper copy of the Second Edition to contain the celebrated Stothard illustrations and the life of Defoe by George Chalmers (first: 1790). cfRay, The Illustrator and the Book in England From 1790 to 1914, 18.

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.