The First Novel Ever? The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

This choice of The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe may seem strange to you, but I have 2 good reasons. If you remember, we read an excerpt of the book in Dr. Banke’s class a few months ago, and the book seemed pretty interesting to me. The other reason was that the book is the first novel ever written, being written in the year 1719. If you read my previous blog post, you’ll know that I’m a fan of older books, and I wanted to truly test this belief by reading the oldest novel ever written. 

 You may be wondering how I am even reading this book. I got this book online and transferred it to a google document, leaving me with a nearly 200 page google document, which is the equivalent of having a picture book with no pictures and only words (basically, the pages are long). The thing is I dislike reading books online and much prefer paper books, so unfortunately I was forced to use the online version of the book, as I doubt I will ever see the paper version of the book in person.

Original Version of the Book Talking about the book itself, there are less words that I didn’t know than I expected, but I still have to look up some words. The style of the book differs a considerable amount from books of later times, as this book puts a lot of detail into everything, causing the book to feel like a real autobiography. The author builds the world as someone documenting real life events would, and to be honest I enjoy this style of storytelling. It’s also interesting seeing the values and beliefs of people around 300 years ago. Seeing similarities between the world nowadays and back then is also a cool feeling, as 300 years ago sounds like a long time ago, and yet human interactions have stayed pretty similar throughout time. 

 The story follows Robinson Crusoe, who wants to leave England and travel the sea despite his father’s disapproval. He listens to his father for a while, but eventually decides to leave England when his friend offers to join him on a ship. The journey ends with Cruose’s friend telling Crusoe never to sail again, but later on Crusoe joins another expedition to Africa. He became friends with the captain and had a successful journey, acquiring a considerable amount of money. The captain died when they returned, so instead another member of the ship took control. They went near the canary islands, but soon encountered pirates and were taken as slaves. 2 years later, Crusoe found his chance to escape and escaped with a boy named Xury. They both traveled by sea, and after a while of sea and land travel, they found a European boat and left. Crusoe gave Xury away to the Europeans with sadness, but was assured Xury would be freed eventually. Crusoe then went to Brazil and started a plantation with success, as he got some money from his home in England which he had acquired during his previous journey. Crusoe lives a good life, but is soon offered the chance to travel the sea once more to Guinea. He joins this expedition, only to have the ship fall by the might of a powerful storm and rocky tides, and by a very lucky chance Crusoe, the only survivor, swims to the shore of a country not known to him. I’m not going to go more in depth, so for those of you who wish to read it can not be spoiled. 

 Overall, I am enjoying this book so far (I’m not done yet; it’s a dense book), but I’m not sure if I could recommend it. Unless you’re like me and have a strong dislike of modern books and want to experience an older era of literature, society, and culture, read this. If not, then continue reading modern books, as The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is a bit complicated in wording and can be a slow read at times.