[Defoe], The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719-1720

DEFOE, DANIEL

The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner [The Further Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe; Serious Reflections During The Life And Surprizing Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe: With His Vision Of The Angelick World]. For William Taylor, 1719-1720

3 volumes, 8vo, FIRST EDITIONS, engraved frontispiece of Robinson Crusoe in volume 1, folding engraved maps of the world and Crusoe's island in volumes 2 and 3, with the advertisements as called for in all volumes, volume 1 with Hutchins' variant points ("apyly" on A2 verso, "Pilot" and "Portuguese" on p.343), volume 2 with long advertisement beginning "Just Published, the 4th edition ..." on verso of A4, volume 3 with the catchword "The" on page 270, red morocco gilt by F. Bedford, gilt turn ins, spines gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, volume 1 with very minor chipping to a few lower edges of leaves, expert neat restoration to volume 2 map at folds,

A FINE SET OF FIRST EDITIONS OF DEFOE'S CELEBRATED MASTERPEICE, which initiated an entirely new literary form -- 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 power as an international trading nation, 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.

"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." (Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

LITERATURE:

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

PROVENANCE:

Henry Francis Redhead Yorke, his bookplates; W.A. Coats, (1853-1926), of Skelmorlie Castle, Ayrshire (and later of Dalskairth, Dumfries); thence by descent

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