Books

2 volumes. xii, [4], [7], 389p; v, 456p, [12]. Contemporary calf. Professionally rebacked with new spines. Marbled end papers. Complete with frontispieces in both volumes, the portrait of Defoe and twelve engraving plates in the text. Lowndes II p613. The first four leaves after the preface are called 'Directions for placing the Cuts'. This is then followed by the subscription list. From the Library of Robert Day with armorial bookplate. Some light foxing on the title page and off-setting from the plates. Corners a little bumped. Slight damage to marbled paper at the inner margin at the front board in volume II. 19th century private ownership stamp on the inside front blanks.

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.