Robinson Crusoe - Larger Print Author:Daniel Defoe A disastrous shipwreck while sailing as a trader to Africa...enslavement by Turkish pirates...a daring escape - only, after more thrilling adventures, to be washed ashore and marooned for 24 years on a lonely Pacific island...and then, cannibals! — This is the stuff of Daniel Defoe's immortal Robinson Crusoe, a tale based on the real life exp... more »eriences of Alexander Selkirk, a sailor castaway of his own time. But Defoe added much to Selkirk's account. It has been said that in this novel, first published in 1719, Defoe wanted to show that man need not become a brute when removed from civilization and so had his Robinson react to exotic hardships as if they were familiar everyday events. Be that as it may, it is to Defoe's imagination that we owe one of our most exciting reading experiences in literature.« less