Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner Who lived eight and twenty Years all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With an Account how he was at l

London: Printed for W. Taylor, 1719. Full Description:

DEFOE, Daniel. The Life, and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner. Who lived eight and twenty Years all alone in an un-inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With an Account how he was at last as strangely deliver’d by Pyrates. Written by Himself. The Fourth Edition. London: Printed for W. Taylor, 1719.

The rare fourth edition, second issue (Hutchins 4B). With a comma after ‘Life’; The tail-pieces at the bottom of page 364 with a bowl of fruit, page "317" incorrectly numbered "217", the two ship vignettes slightly different and no "Part I" on leaf T. The fourth edition was published the same year as the first edition. Octavo (7 5/8 x 4 9/16 inches; 194 x 116 mm). [4], 364, [4, ads] pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Robinson Crusoe by Clark & Pine. Folding map is present in the accompanying first edition of volume 2. Decorative woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials. Volume I of this work was so popular that it went through four editions within the first four months of it being printed.

[Together with:]

[DEFOE, Daniel]. The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe; Being the Second and Last Part of his Life, and of the Strange Surprizing Accounts of his Travels Round three Parts of the Globe. Written by Himself. To which is added a Map of the World, in which is Delineated the Voyages of Robinson Crusoe. London: Printed by W. Taylor, 1719.

First edition, second issue (Hutchins “B3”), with the verso of leaf A4 printed with an advertisement for the 4th edition of Volume I. With “Breaking,” “Dif-/ference,” “Punish-/ment,” and “wanting” on the recto; with “Farther” on the recto of leaf B1. Octavo. [8], 373, [11, ads] pp. Folding engraved map of the world on a stub, facing title-page. Decorative woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials.

Two volumes uniformly bound in full contemporary speckled, paneled calf, rebacked to style. Boards tooled in blind. Spines ruled in gilt. Both volumes with red morocco spine labels, lettered in gilt. Newer endpapers. Volume I with previous owner's old ink very light notes on blank recto of the frontispiece. A small library stamp to verso of title-page. Frontispiece of volume I with the bottom margin restored, not affecting image. Volume II with repair along inner margin of the title-page. With minor paper flaw to top margins of leaf K3, not affecting text and X5, just touching page number bracket. Title-page is lightly soiling. Some minor occasional finger soiling. Overall an excellent copy of this set.

Beginning with Captain William Dampier’s enormously popular A New Voyage Round the World (1697; seventh edition 1729), English travel literature enjoyed a second Renaissance. Circumnavigators and privateers—Dampier and Woodes Rogers being preeminent—published accounts of their adventures. In at least three of the most popular instances—Dampier (1697), Rogers (1712), and Edward Cooke, one of Roger’s mates (1712)—the frontispiece to their volume of voyages was a folding map, a planisphere by Herman Moll upon which a dotted line traced the route of the voyager. This then was the convention which lies immediately behind “A Map of the World on which is Delineated the Voyages of Robinson Cruso.” Crusoe’s folding planisphere has been attributed to Moll, but though it is similar to the map employed by Dampier and Cooke and is even closer to that employed by Rogers, it is not identical to either, and lacking an “H. Moll fecit,” its origin remains indefinite. It first appeared in the first edition of The Farther Adventures; it was added to the fourth and later editions of The Strange Surprizing Adventures”: (Newberry Library)

“After twenty years of enormously prolific pamphleteering, political and sectarian, sometimes in verse, Defoe suddenly disclosed a genius for devising a tale of adventure. The special form of adventure that he chose, and even the name of his hero, have been adopted by countless imitators...This influence is not yet dissipated, for much of science fiction is basically Crusoe’s island changed to a planet. At least equally relevant...is the figure of the lonely human being subduing the pitiless forces of nature; going back to nature, indeed, and portraying the ‘noble savage’ in a way that made the book required reading for Rousseau’s Emile. Robinson Crusoe has long since been more widely read in the abridged versions for young people, in which his breast-beating and philosophizing are less prominent than the footprint in the sand, Man Friday, the threatening savages, and the endless ingenuity and contrivance that make the hero’s life more tolerable. But the pious sections of the book are also relevant in the religious inferences drawn by Crusoe from his communings with nature” (Printing and the Mind of Man).

Crusoe 250 27. Grolier, 100 English, 41. Hutchins, pp. 78-80, Hutchins, pp. 97-112. Hutchins, pp. 122-128. Printing and the Mind of Man 180.

HBS 69079.

$13,500. (Inventory #: 69079)