[Defoe, Daniel]

8vo, 3 volumes, first edition, first issue, engraved frontispiece of Robinson Crusoe in vol.1, folding engraved maps of the world and Crusoe's island in vols.2 and 3, with the advertisements as called for in all volumes, vol.1 with Hutchins' variant points ("apyly" on A2 verso, "Pilot" and "Portuguese" on p.343), vol.2 with variants as described in ESTC, nineteenth-century sprinkled calf gilt by Riviere, gilt turn-ins, spines gilt in compartments, brown morocco pull-off case, first portion of vol.1 with marginal restoration, with some loss of outer rule on title, and the extreme outer edges of a few letters elsewhere, folding map in vol.2 laid down, with slight wear at folds, and a neatly repaired tear, folding map vol.3 shaved at lower edge, hinges expertly repaired

Charles George Milnes Gaskell, bookplate

ESTC T72264, N47838, T72276; Furbank and Owens 201, 204, 210; Hutchins, pp.64-65; Moore 412, 417, 436

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing, where appropriate.
"In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective, qualified opinion. Prospective buyers should also refer to any Important Notices regarding this sale, which are printed in the Sale Catalogue.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

A fine copy of one of the most popular and influential novels ever written. Defoe wrote the novel at the age of 59 after a long career as a writer, businessman, and controversialist, which had seen him variously imprisoned for seditious libel, writing government propaganda, and experimenting with the new forms of long fiction that would come to be called the novel. Robinson Crusoe was written with a keen eye to a contemporary taste for travel and the exotic largely inspired by  Britain's burgeoning power as an international trading nation, and it was an immediate and massive success. It passed through four editions in as many months and within a year of publication had been translated into French, German, and Dutch. It has not been out of print in nearly three hundred years.

In Crusoe, Defoe created one of the great archetypal stories of the modern era, not only of the exile cast into unknown lands, but also of the implacable individual remaking society with his own hands and in his own image. Its profound understanding of economics have captured the imagination of many: in Das Kapital, Marx praised the novel as providing a clear portrayal of a pre-capitalist economic model, but later critics often cast Crusoe as the prototypical homo economicus presaging the coming of modern capitalism. The novel has also always appealed to more romantic sensibilities. Rousseau thought it was the first book that ought to be studied by a growing boy, whilst Samuel Taylor Coleridge saw Crusoe as "the universal representative, the person for whom every reader could substitute himself", and wrote in the margin of his copy that:

"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."