Books

(Fine Binding) The Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner with Introductory Verses by Bernard Barton - Two Volumes and illustrated with Numerous Engravings by George Cruikshank Expressly Designed for this Edition. --- Printed at the Shakespeare Press by W. Nicol for John Major, Fleet Street, 1831. 2 volumes, 434, 406 pages, full green morocco, signed leather bindings, spine sunned to brown color with gilded title and 'London 1831. All page edges gilt, inner dentelles and leather center-pieces on inside front and back covers, beautifully executed. Sadly the binder's signature is not so well executed, looks they used so much gold, that the name is difficult to read in both volumes (in lower dentelles in front, see photo). First endpaper is decorated cloth, next endpapers marbled, In vol. 1 frontispiece illustration by Cruikshank (Friday kneeling in front of Crusoe}; plus second frontispiece of Daniel Defoe, with his name under the portrait. In vol. 2 frontispiece illustration by Cruikshank (a woman talking with Crusoe, simply titled 'Frontispiece'); plus second frontispiece with empty name cartouche. Probably an older Daniel Defoe, who is not mentioned as author. 38 Cruikshank woodcut illustrations with French titles. Binding tight, spines faded with clear gilded titles, Several small, old worm holes in the leather spines, not affecting titles (no worm holes in the pages). Text pages very clean, plates with occasional spotting in the margins, not affecting illustrations.

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.