In Search of Robinson Crusoe - Hardcover

Severin, Tim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 046507698X ISBN 13: 9780465076987

Publisher: Basic Books, 2002

Synopsis

For nearly three centuries, Robinson Crusoe has been the archetypal castaway, the symbol of survival in uninhabited wilds. In this book, Tim Severin adds this enterprising hero to the roster of legendary figures whose adventures he's replicated and whose origins he's explored. With the signature approach to literary and historical sleuthing that has led the New York Times to describe him as "original, audacious, and exuberant," Severin uncovers the seaman's world that captured Daniel Defoe's imagination, recounting dramatic survival stories of sailors, pirates, castaways, and native Americans and replicating their journeys to experience for himself the adventures that inspired Robinson Crusoe. He camps on islands that famous castaways once survived on, undertakes a perilous sea voyage, and searches Nicaragua and Honduras for the Miskutu Indians, the tribe that the model for Crusoe's companion, Friday, belonged to. Tim Severin has once again demonstrated a superb ability to bring t

About this title

Review

Tim Severin's In Search of Robinson Crusoe is a fascinating melding of literary and bibliographic scholarship and wide-ranging travelogue that seeks out, and discovers, the flesh-and-blood prototypes for Daniel Defoe's famous castaway and his island home. Severin makes a convincing case that Alexander Selkirk, long assumed to be the model for Crusoe, was little more than Defoe's immediate inspiration. In fact, says Severin, Defoe based the setting and many episodes of his novel on gleanings from other contemporary accounts of maroonings (three, in particular). Severin's research takes him first to Selkirk's island, then to the coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras, where he visits the Miskitu Indians (on whose forebears Defoe likely based Crusoe's Man Friday) as well as to several thoroughly obscure Caribbean desert islets. The most intriguing sections of the book are recountings of the adventures of various abandoned seamen, including Pedro Serrano, a 16th-century mariner who maintained he had lived for seven years on a desolate cay devoid of fresh water. This is an audacious and thrilling book. --H. O'Billovich

About the Author

Tim Severin has made a career of retracing the journeys of literary or historical figures in replica vessels. These experiences have been turned into a body of captivating and illuminating books, including The Brendan Voyage and In Search of Moby Dick. He has received numerous awards for exploration and geographic history, including the Founder's Medal of England's Geographic Society. When not traveling, he lives in County Cork, Ireland.

About this edition

• Publisher: Basic Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 046507698X
• ISBN 13: 9780465076987
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352