Robinson Crusoe
- 248
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“Robinson Crusoe” still works as a survival story: one man, an island and the slow business of staying alive. That is the part some readers remember fondly from childhood. Others find the religious fervour and the assumptions about race and empire of 1719 hard to get past, even allowing for the age. Its lasting interest is as the source of so many castaway tales, not as a modern adventure.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
Robinson Crusoe is one of the most famous literary characters in history, and his story has spawned hundreds of retellings. Inspired by the life of Alexander Selkirk, a sailor who lived for several years on a Pacific island, the novel tells the story of Crusoe’s survival after shipwreck on an island, interaction with the mainland’s native inhabitants, and eventual rescue. Read variously as economic fable, religious allegory, or imperialist fantasy, Crusoe has never lost its appeal as one of the most compelling adventure stories of all time. In addition to an introduction and helpful notes, this Broadview Edition includes a wide range of appendices that situate Defoe’s 1719 novel amidst castaway narratives, economic treatises, reports of cannibalism, explorations of solitude, and Defoe’s own writings on slavery and the African trade. A final appendix presents images of Crusoe’s rescue of Friday from a dozen of the most significant illustrated editions of the novel published between 1719 and 1920.
Reading order · Robinson Crusoe
Full order & progress →- Robinson CrusoeThis book
7.27.2 / 10 - The Further Adventures of Robinson CrusoeThe Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe–Not ranked yet
- Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his Vision of the Angelick WorldSerious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his Vision of the Angelick World–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.0 across 595 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 80% of the weight and the score stays at 7.2 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 7.8 | 26 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 7.0 | 569 | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is Robinson Crusoe?
It has 248 pages — shorter than 56% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 7.1 and 7.3, closest to this book.
