The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins (Paperback or Softback)

The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751) is an adventure novel by Robert Paltock. No doubt inspired by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), Paltock’s novel is a brilliant work of fiction in its own right, earning praise from such figures as Walter Scott and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. Republished in an influential 1884 edition with an introduction by editor and academic Arthur Henry Bullen, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins remains a uniquely entertaining novel of shipwreck, romance, and discovery. “It was about the middle of June, when the days are there at the shortest, on a very starry and moonlight night, that we observed at some distance a very black cloud, but seemingly of no extraordinary size or height, moving very fast towards us, and seeming to follow the ship, which then made great way.” While sailing around Cape Horn, the crew of the Hector spots a mysterious object flying toward them in the sky. Alarmed, the men open fire, causing the object to crash into the sea. Soon, cries for help alert them to an old man afloat on the waves, grasping the remnants of his flying machine for dear life. Safely on board, the man introduces himself as Peter Wilkins. Decades prior, he left his home and family in Cornwall to embark on a voyage to Africa. There, he was stolen into slavery by Portuguese settlers, but managed to escape with the help of the native Glanlepze and his wife. Later, Wilkins fell in with a group of English prisoners, who managed to steal a Portuguese vessel before being shipwrecked and lost at sea. The sole survivor, Wilkins washed ashore on a desert island, where he would fight every second to survive. This edition of Robert Paltock’s The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins is a classic of English literature reimagined for modern readers.

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Robert Paltock (1697-1767) was an English novelist and attorney. Born in Westminster, Robert was the son of Thomas Paltock. He became an attorney as a young man and was called to the Bar at Clement’s Inn, where he lived until 1759. That year, he moved to Lambeth and married Anna Skinner, with whom he would raise one son. His novel The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins (1751) is regarded as a fictional travelogue in the tradition of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and has influenced generations of writers, including Walter Scott, Robert Southey, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Charles Lamb. Despite the novel’s success, Paltock’s name has been largely forgotten by today’s critics and readers. Regardless, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wilkins remains an important early adventure novel that capitalized on the growth of the colonial imagination among readers in England and abroad.