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January 1719. A man sits at a table, writing. Nearly sixty,Daniel Defoe is troubled with gout and mired in political controversy and legal threats. But for the moment he is preoccupied by a younger man on a barren shore—Robinson Crusoe.
Several miles south, another old man, Robert Knox, sits bent over a heavy volume—published nearly forty years before.Knox’s Historical Relation was a best seller when it was published in 1681, just a year after he escaped from Ceylon and returned to England.
Where did Crusoe come from? And what is the secret of his endurance? Crusoe explores the intertwined lives of two real men, Daniel Defoe and Robert Knox, and the character and book that emerged from their peculiar conjunction. It is the biography of a book and its hero: the story of Defoe, the man who wrote Robinson Crusoe, and of Robert Knox, the man who was Crusoe.
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Chapter 1 Two Writing Men 1
Chapter 2 Crusoe's Secret 11
Chapter 3 'Captivated' 32
Chapter 4 Shipwrecked by Land 58
Chapter 5 'Having But Little and Wanting Lesse' 84
Chapter 6 Escape 113
Chapter 7 Another Escape 134
Chapter 8 Stranger, Author, Captain 167
Chapter 9 Captain Knox Recaptivated 192
Chapter 10 St Helena 213
Chapter 11 Captain Knox and Captain Singleton 233
Chapter 12 Ancient Mariners 253
Epilogue 287
List of Illustrations and Maps 298
Select Bibliography 300
Notes 307
Acknowledgements 329
Index 331
Overview
January 1719. A man sits at a table, writing. Nearly sixty,Daniel Defoe is troubled with gout and mired in political controversy and legal threats. But for the moment he is preoccupied by a younger man on a barren shore—Robinson Crusoe.
Several miles south, another old man, Robert Knox, sits bent over a heavy volume—published nearly forty years before.Knox’s Historical Relation was a best seller when it was published in 1681, just a year after ...