Books

London: John Stockdale, 1804. Two volumes complete - Volume One - viii, 405pp, [1] and Volume Two - v, [1], 456pp. Rebound in modern half morocco and marbled paper over boards, raised bands, spine in six panels, morocco title label to second panel, author label to fourth, volume number in gilt to third, all panels framed with gilt double fillet, all edges marbled. Externally very good indeed. Internally lightly browned throughout, some light offsetting from engravings with occasional light foxing. Engraved frontispiece and title page to each volume, and thirteen plates called for (plus an extra plate not called for) between the two volumes. Large paper copy, with a Life of Defoe by Chalmers. Stothard, Thomas (1755-1834), painter and book illustrator, "many of his illustrations were for reissues, as in his celebrated illustrations for John Stockdale's edition of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe in 1790 (a sketch for Robinson Crusoe Building his Canoe is in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford)…

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.