1 Robinson Crusoe: Introduction + Chapter I – Start in life
Daniel Defoe
Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published in 1719. It tells the story of a man who becomes shipwrecked on a deserted island, where he spends 28 years surviving against the odds. Throughout his isolation, Crusoe demonstrates ingenuity and resilience, building shelter, cultivating food, and eventually encountering and befriending a native he names Friday. The novel explores themes of survival, self-reliance, and human endurance, and is often considered one of the earliest examples of realistic fiction in English literature.
The text is available in three
Throughout the text, if you are logged in, you can click on any word. Try it, click on any word in this paragraph. It will show its meaning, pronunciation, word forms, and the translation of the whole sentence.
You can also use keyboard shortcuts.
So, let's dive in and have fun while learning something new.
Chapter I – Start in life
I was born in the year 1632, in the city of York, into a good family, though not originally from that country, as my father was a foreigner from Bremen who first settled in Hull.
He acquired a good estate through trade, and after retiring from his business, he lived in York, where he had married my mother, whose relatives were named Robinson, a very good family in that area, and from whom I was called Robinson Kreutznaer.
But, due to the usual corruption of words in England, we are now called—indeed, we call ourselves and write our name—Crusoe; and so my companions always called me.
I had two older brothers; one of them was a lieutenant-colonel in an English infantry regiment in Flanders, formerly commanded by the famous Colonel Lockhart, and was killed at the battle near Dunkirk against the Spaniards. What became of my second brother I never knew, any more than my father or mother knew what became of me.
Being the third son in the family and not trained for any trade, my mind began to be filled very early with wandering thoughts.
My father, who was very old, had given me a reasonable amount of education, as far as home schooling and a country free school generally go, and intended me for the law. But I would be satisfied with nothing but going to sea; and my inclination to this led me so strongly against the will—indeed, the commands—of my father, and against all the entreaties and persuasions of my mother and other friends.
There seemed to be something fateful in that natural tendency, leading directly to the life of misery which was to befall me.
My father, a wise and serious man, gave me serious and excellent advice against what he foresaw was my intention. He called me one morning into his room, where, confined by gout, he was staying, and argued passionately with me on this subject.
He asked me what reasons, beyond a mere wandering inclination, I had for leaving my father's house and my native country, where I might be well established and had a prospect of advancing my fortune through diligence and hard work, with a life of ease and pleasure.
He told me it was men of desperate fortunes on one hand, or of ambitious, superior fortunes on the other, who went abroad on adventures, to rise through enterprise and make themselves famous in undertakings of an unusual nature; that these things were all either too far above me or too far below me; that mine was the middle state, or what might be called the upper station of low life, which he had found, through long experience, was the best state in the world, the most suited to human happiness; not exposed to the miseries and hardships, the labour and sufferings of the working class, and not burdened with the pride, luxury, ambition, and envy of the upper classes.
He told me I might judge the happiness of this state by this one thing—namely, that this was the state of life which all other people envied; that kings have frequently lamented the miserable consequences of being born to great things, and wished they had been placed in the middle of the two extremes, between the mean and the great; that the wise man gave his testimony to this, as the standard of happiness, when he prayed to have neither poverty nor riches.