Shipwrecked! (Illustrated‪)‬

Desert island reading, literally!  "Shipwrecked!" serves up the stories of famous castaways in literature, from Robinson Crusoe onward, in one collection.


The novels included in this collection are:

1. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, that credits the work's fictional protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents.  The book is a fictional autobiography of the title character, a castaway who spends years on a remote tropical island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers before being rescued.


Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. 


2. The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

The Further adventures of Robinson Crusoe is a sequel to Daniel Defoe popular "Robinson Crusoe".  


The book starts with the statement about Crusoe's marriage in England. He bought a little farm in Bedford and had three children: two sons and one daughter. Our hero suffered a distemper and a desire to see "his island." He could talk of nothing else, and one can imagine that nobody took his stories seriously, except his wife. She told him, in tears, "I will go with you, but I won't leave you".


Around the beginning of January 1694, Crusoe and Friday went on board a ship, captained by his nephew, and eventually arrived at Crusoe's Island via Ireland...


3. The Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

The Swiss Family Robinson is a novel by Johann David Wyss about a Swiss family shipwrecked in the East Indies en route to Port Jackson, Australia.


The novel opens with the family in the hold of a sailing ship, weathering a great storm. The ship runs aground on a reef, and the family learns the ship's crew has taken to a lifeboat and abandoned them. Subsequent searches for the crew yield no trace.


The ship survives the night, and the family finds themselves within sight of a tropical island. The ship's cargo of livestock, dogs, guns & powder, carpentry tools, books, a disassembled pinnace, and provisions have survived. The family builds a raft, lashes livestock and the most valuable supplies to it, and paddles to the island, where they set up a temporary shelter.


Over the next few weeks they make several expeditions back to the ship, to empty its hold, and harvest rigging, planks, and sails. They construct a small homestead on the island, and adapt wonderfully well to their new life on the island.


Although movie and TV adaptations typically name the family "Robinson", it is not a Swiss name; the "Robinson" of the title refers to Robinson Crusoe. The German name translates as the Swiss Robinson, and identifies the novel as belonging to the Robinsonian genre, rather than as a story about a family named Robinson.


4. Perseverance Island by Douglas Frazar 

Douglas Frazar’s ‘Perseverance Island’ is the American Victorian reinterpretation of Robinson Crusoe and it shares shelf space with such classics as Drums along the Mohawk, Mysterious Island, Vingt Mille Lieues sous les mers, Face au drapeau, Robur-le-Conquérant, and the recently available Verne masterpiece, Paris au XXe siècle.


The story is told from the first person perspective of William Anderson the last survivor of the schooner Good Luck who writes about his youth, voyage, shipwreck, and survival on an island.


Frazar makes the legitimate point that unlike Robinson Crusoe where the shipwreck with all the necessary goods for easier life is accessible, William Anderson had no such accessories.  His story proves the limitless ingenuity and invention of man.


Original illustrations are included throughout the book.