[Defoe, Daniel] | The birth of the novel in English

Property from the Library of John M. Schiff

[Defoe, Daniel]

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner ... London: Printed for W. Taylor, 1719 — The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; Being the Second and Last Part of his Life ... London: Printed for W. Taylor, 1719 — Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With His Vision of the Angelick World. London: Printed for W. Taylor, 1720

3 vols, 8vo (180 x 113 mm). Title-pages, engraved frontispiece of Robinson Crusoe in first volume, folding engraved map of the world in second volume, folding engraved plate of Crusoe's island in third volume, advertisements at end of each volume as called for, woodcut vignettes on titles in second and third volume, woodcut head- and tail-pieces, woodcut initials; very mild browning, restoration to the last leaf of volume one touching a few letters. Uniformly bound in full red morocco by Rivière, spines with raised bands in six compartments, second and third compartments gilt lettered, others with repeat gilt decoration, boards with triple gilt rules, inside dentelles gilt, all edges gilt; offsetting from bookplate onto front free endpaper in first volume, offsetting onto endpapers from dentelles in all, volumes one and three with front hinges cracked, volumes one and two with upper boards cleanly detached but present.

A set of first editions of Defoe's celebrated masterpiece, which initiated the entirely new literary form of the novel—with its revolutionary power both to "instruct and delight"—and has since become embedded in the world's cultural consciousness. Written with a keen eye to a contemporary taste for travel and the exotic largely inspired by Britain's burgeoning colonial power, the novel was an immediate and massive success both among the greatest thinkers of the age and the reading public, passing through four editions in its first year. It is second only to the Bible in number of translations.

"The romance of Crusoe's adventures, the figure of civilized man fending for himself on a desert island, has made an imperishable impression on the mind of man ... much of modern science fiction is basically Crusoe's island changed to a planet" (PMM Exhibition Catalogue, 1963, no. 325). According to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Defoe was "he, who makes me forget my specific class, character, & circumstances raises me into the Universal Man - Now this is Defoe's Excellence, you become a Man while you read."

REFERENCE:

Hutchins, pp.52-65, pp.97-112, pp.121-128; Furbank and Owens 201, 204, 210; Moore 412, 417, 436

PROVENANCE:

Mortimer L. Schiff (red morocco bookplate to pastedown)