Read "Robinson Crusoe" in the Book Club

Robinson Crusoe may have been based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish sailor rescued from the island of Mas a Tierra after four years. The stories are not completely the same, though. Selkirk reportedly requested to be left behind, whereas Crusoe was shipwrecked. The book is also far more detailed than the account of Selkirk by his rescuer, Woodes Rogers (it totaled four pages). There are many other accounts of real castaways in the 1700s, be they shipwrecked or forced off their ships.

By the 19th century, Robinson Crusoe had the most spin-offs, sequels, and reinterpretations of any literary work ever published. Defoe even wrote the lesser-known sequel The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. There are plenty of modern realizations of it, too, including The Swiss Family Robinson.









Many writers have argued over whether Crusoe is a heroic figure, or simply an "everyman." Specifically, many thought he was meant to sum up English society of the time. Some people even believed (and still do today) that the novel meant to be a Puritan guidebook. It does, after all, have a lot of religious aspects to it.

When I was little, my grandfather read a large illustrated version to me -- I keep meaning to re-read it, but have yet to subscribe to it here. Has anyone else read it recently, or is anyone else currently reading it, who's taken note of any of the aspects I mentioned? I'm curious about reading it again knowing what I know now.