60 Fun Facts About Robinson Crusoe

Who wrote Robinson Crusoe?

It was first published on 25 April 1719 and is often called the first English novel.

In which year was Robinson Crusoe first published?

It ran through four editions before the year was out.

How many years does Crusoe spend on his island?

He is wrecked on 30 September 1659 and leaves on 19 December 1686.

Which Scottish castaway is most often cited as the inspiration for Crusoe?

He spent four years alone on Más a Tierra, in the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile.

The real castaway's island, Más a Tierra, was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in which year?

It now belongs to Chile.

Crusoe's family name is described as coming from what German name?

His father, a merchant, wanted him to pursue a career in law.

From which English port does Crusoe first set sail, in 1651?

He goes against the wishes of his parents.

On his second voyage Crusoe is captured and enslaved by pirates from which North African port?

He escapes two years later in a boat with a boy named Xury.

Who escapes slavery with Crusoe, only to be sold by him to a Portuguese captain?

The captain's ship is bound for Brazil, where Crusoe acquires a plantation.

In which country does Crusoe run a plantation before his fateful voyage?

He joins an expedition to buy slaves from Africa, and the ship is wrecked in a storm.

Crusoe's island lies near the mouth of which South American river?

He records its latitude as 9 degrees 22 minutes north.

What name does Crusoe give his new home when he first lands?

He observes penguins and seals there.

Apart from Crusoe, which animals survive the shipwreck?

He later adopts a small parrot and raises goats he traps.

How does Crusoe keep track of time on the island?

He also reads the Bible and becomes deeply religious.

Which crops does Crusoe grow on the island?

He also dries grapes into raisins and learns to make pottery.

What goes wrong with the first large boat Crusoe builds?

He then builds a smaller boat to explore the island's coast.

Why does Crusoe name his companion Friday?

Crusoe teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.

Crusoe decides he has no right to kill the visiting cannibals for what reason?

He nonetheless regards cannibalism as a 'national crime' and forbids Friday from practising it.

Which two prisoners do Crusoe and his companion rescue from the cannibals' feast?

The Spaniard tells of shipmates stranded on the mainland.

How does Crusoe finally leave the island?

The mutineers choose to stay on the island rather than hang in England.

On what date does Crusoe leave the island?

He arrives in England on 11 June 1687 to find his family had believed him dead.

What final adventure do Crusoe and Friday face on the way home from Lisbon?

Crusoe travels overland to avoid the sea.

The first edition credited whom as the book's author?

Many readers took it for a genuine travelogue.

What term was coined for the genre of castaway stories the book inspired?

The Swiss Family Robinson even borrowed Crusoe's first name for its title.

Roughly how long is Defoe thought to have taken to write the novel?

Tim Severin called it 'a publishing phenomenon'.

Who rescued the marooned Scottish sailor Selkirk in 1709?

The rescue led to published accounts of Selkirk's adventures in 1712.

Per Tim Severin, which castaway surgeon and Monmouth rebel is the likeliest model for Crusoe?

Pitman lodged above the shop of the publisher whose son later published Defoe's novel.

Marooned sailor Pedro Serrano, a possible Crusoe inspiration, survived on what?

He was marooned for seven or eight years in the 1520s with no fresh water.

Which 12th-century Arabic philosophical novel, also set on a desert island, is a possible source?

Ibn Tufail's tale had been translated into Latin and English several times before 1719.

Defoe's 1719 sequel was titled what?

A third book, Serious Reflections, followed in 1720.

The name 'Crusoe' may derive from Timothy Cruso, who was what to Defoe?

Cruso wrote guide books such as God the Guide of Youth before dying young.

Robert Louis Stevenson called which scene one of the four greatest in English literature?

Stevenson also parodied Crusoe with the goat-skinned castaway Ben Gunn in Treasure Island.

Which 1726 book is in part a parody of Robinson Crusoe?

Swift's satire has been read as a rebuttal of Defoe's optimism about human capability.

Which character in Treasure Island is a parody of Crusoe, marooned for years and dressed in goat skin?

He constantly talks about providence, just like Crusoe.

In Rousseau's Emile, what is the only book the boy is allowed to read before the age of twelve?

Rousseau wanted Emile to learn self-reliance from Crusoe's example.

Which narrator in Wilkie Collins's The Moonstone uses Robinson Crusoe for divination and calls it the finest book ever?

He thinks a man poorly read if he has not read the book.

J. M. Coetzee's 1986 novel Foe retells the Crusoe story from whose perspective?

Michel Tournier's Friday, or, The Other Island is another modern reworking.

Which writer coined the term 'inverted Crusoeism' for protagonists who choose to maroon themselves?

His novel Concrete Island is the prime example.

What nickname was given to people who hid in the ruins of occupied Warsaw for months in 1944-45?

They emerged when the Red Army arrived in January 1945.

Which composer wrote an 1867 opéra comique called Robinson Crusoé?

It was based on the British pantomime version rather than the novel.

Who produced and directed the first film adaptation, in 1902?

A second silent adaptation followed in 1927.

Which surrealist director made a 1954 Robinson Crusoe starring Dan O'Herlihy?

A Soviet 3D version had appeared in 1947.

In the 1966 Disney comedy Lt. Robin Crusoe, U.S.N., what is Dick Van Dyke's female 'Friday' called?

Robinson Crusoe on Mars the year before had an alien Friday and Adam West.

Which actor played Crusoe opposite Richard Roundtree in Man Friday (1975)?

It sardonically portrays Crusoe as unable to see his companion as anything but inferior.

Which 2000 Tom Hanks film about a stranded FedEx employee borrows heavily from Crusoe?

His volleyball companion Wilson stands in for Friday.

Which two reality TV formats are cited as being influenced by the novel?

Both strand contestants in isolated locations, usually islands.

Andrew Lambert, author of Crusoe's Island, calls Crusoe what kind of figure, unlike the buccaneers?

'He's creating a world of trade and profit,' Lambert says.

Which 1997 film version of the novel starred Pierce Brosnan?

It received limited commercial success; Aidan Quinn had played the role in 1988's Crusoe.

On what date was Robinson Crusoe first published in 1719?

Before the end of the year the first volume had run through four editions.

By the end of the 19th century, roughly how many alternative versions of Robinson Crusoe existed?

No book in Western literature had more editions, spin-offs and translations, including versions in Inuktitut, Coptic and Maltese.

What was the title of Defoe's third book about his castaway hero, published in 1720?

The Farther Adventures had been billed as the last part of the story on its own title page.

What latitude does Crusoe observe for his island?

He also claims to see penguins and seals there, despite the island lying off the Venezuelan coast.

Which British captain's 1712 voyage books first publicised the adventures of Alexander Selkirk?

A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World and A Cruising Voyage Around the World both appeared in 1712, seven years before Defoe's novel.

How does the English ship's captain describe Crusoe to the mutineers at the end of the novel?

Crusoe calls himself 'king' of the island several times, and at the very end it is referred to as a 'colony'.

Which poet's 183-line 'Crusoe in England' imagines the castaway recalling his exile in old age?

The poem mixes bemusement and regret, a far cry from Defoe's providential hero.

Which Batman actor appears in the 1965 film Robinson Crusoe on Mars?

Paul Mantee starred, with Victor Lundin as an alien Friday.

Which 1930s cartoon genre did ex-New Yorker cartoon editor Bob Mankoff trace to Crusoe?

Bob Mankoff, The New Yorker's cartoon editor from 1997 to 2017, traced the long-running gag format directly to the novel.

Czechoslovak animator Stanislav Látal made a 1981 Crusoe film subtitled 'a Sailor from' where?

It combined traditional and stop-motion animation and was co-produced by West German broadcaster Südwestfunk.

Defoe was placed in the pillory in July 1703 chiefly on account of which pamphlet?

After three days he went to Newgate; Robert Harley brokered his release in return for intelligence work.

Roughly how many pen names is Defoe known to have used?

As many as 545 titles have been attributed to him, which makes untangling his authorship a scholarly headache.