Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe was partially based on the life of Scotsman Alexander Selkirk who to sea on the galleon Cinque Ports in 1703. Their vessel had become unseaworthy and Selkirk asked to be put ashore on one of the uninhabited Juan Fernández islands (now called Robinson Crusoe Island) about 400 miles off the west coast of Chile, South America. He was rescued in 1709 by Woodes Rogers who went on to write A cruising voyage round the world: first to the South-Sea, thence to the East-Indies, and homewards by the Cape of Good Hope (1712) which contained the first account of Selkirk's ordeal.

Defoe published "Robinson Crusoe" in 1719. Defoe was born in England in 1660 and died in 1731. He wrote more than 500 books, articles, pamphlets and poems during his life, a prolific author of the Augustan Age.

"Defoe evidently knew King William III; indeed, his bankruptcy in 1692 for the enormous sum of £17,000 was primarily because of losses suffered from underwriting marine insurance for the King. Although he settled with his creditors in 1693, he was plagued by the threat of bankruptcy throughout his life and faced imprisonment for debt and libel seven times" You just can't make a right brained person function well in a left brained world!

Chapter One, Robinson Crusoe: "All this while the storm increased, and the sea went very high, though nothing like what I have seen many times since; no, nor what I saw a few days after; but it was enough to affect me then, who was but a young sailor, and had never known anything of the matter. I expected every wave would have swallowed us up, and that every time the ship fell down, as I thought it did, in the trough or hollow of the sea, we should never rise more; in this agony of mind, I made many vows and resolutions that if it would please God to spare my life in this one voyage, if ever I got once my foot upon dry land again, I would go directly home to my father, and never set it into a ship again while I lived; that I would take his advice, and never run myself into such miseries as these any more. Now I saw plainly the goodness of his observations about the middle station of life, how easy, how comfortably he had lived all his days, and never had been exposed to tempests at sea or troubles on shore; and I resolved that I would, like a true repenting prodigal, go home to my father."

He must have DREAMED of belonging to an island as this one -- however, he was married with seven children to support and often dodged the creditors. Daniel died in 1731, "probably whilst in hiding from his creditors. His grave can still be visited in Bunhill Fields, London. There is something about visiting a grave site that gives you the feeling that the person actually existed.

I walk through cemeterys to find unique names -- and also to find their names written in the early newspapers, to try to find where they once lived and what they did. Geneologists. What makes us so?

Back to the story:

"But my ill fate pushed me on now with an obstinacy that nothing could resist; and though I had several times loud calls from my reason and my more composed judgment to go home, yet I had no power to do it. I know not what to call this, nor will I urge that it is a secret overruling decree, that hurries us on to be the instruments of our own destruction, even though it be before us, and that we rush upon it with our eyes open. Certainly, nothing but some such decreed unavoidable misery, which it was impossible for me to escape, could have pushed me forward against the calm reasonings and persuasions of my most retired thoughts, and against two such visible instructions as I had met with in my first attempt."

I love the ferver in which they talked in their day -- so much more romantic. But what are "retired thoughts?"

"Persuasions of my most retired thoughts........."

Chapter Three: "In this manner I used to look upon my condition with the utmost regret. I had nobody to converse with, but now and then this neighbour; no work to be done, but by the labour of my hands; and I used to say, I lived just like a man cast away upon some desolate island, that had nobody there but himself. But how just has it been - and how should all men reflect, that when they compare their present conditions with others that are worse, Heaven may oblige them to make the exchange, and be convinced of their former felicity by their experience - I say, how just has it been, that the truly solitary life I reflected on, in an island of mere desolation, should be my lot, who had so often unjustly compared it with the life which I then led, in which, had I continued, I had in all probability been exceeding prosperous and rich." (He should have been a merchant, me thinks.)

"But I, that was born to be my own destroyer, could no more resist the offer than I could restrain my first rambling designs when my father' good counsel was lost upon me. In a word, I told them I would go with all my heart, if they would undertake to look after my plantation in my absence, and would dispose of it to such as I should direct, if I miscarried."

Miscarry is a verb from the 14th century that meant "failing the achieved purpose." Now we use that word mainly as miscarrying a fetus to full term pregnancy.

I'd like to go on a trivia game show on TV and win a million dollars, except I can never remember all this stuff I am so curious about.

And then came Friday -- His good man, Friday -- Chapter 14: "But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with him, and made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, and understand me when I spoke; and he was the aptest scholar that ever was; and particularly was so merry, so constantly diligent, and so pleased when he could but understand me, or make me understand him, that it was very pleasant for me to talk to him. Now my life began to be so easy that I began to say to myself that could I but have been safe from more savages, I cared not if I was never to remove from the place where I lived."

It's quite an interesting story, actually.  You can find the whole story online.