Samuel Johnson.

The book was a tremendous success.  It pleased the men and women and children of two hundred years ago as much as it pleases them to-day.  Within a few months four editions had been sold.  Since then, till now, there has never been a time when Robinson Crusoe has not been read.  The editions of it have been countless.  It has been edited and re-edited, it has been translated and abridged, turned into shorthand and into poetry, and published in every form imaginable, and at every price, from one penny to many pounds.

Defoe got the idea of his story from the adventures of a Scots sailor named Alexander Selkirk.  This sailor quarreled with his captain, and was set ashore upon an uninhabited island where he remained alone for more than four years.  At the end of that time he was rescued by a passing ship and brought home to England.  Out of this slender tale Defoe made his fascinating story so full of adventure.

What holds us in the story is its seeming truth.  As we read it we forget altogether that it is only a story, we feel sure that Crusoe really lived, that all his adventures really happened.  And if you ever read any more of Defoe’s books you will find that this feeling runs through them all.  Defoe was, in fact, a born story-teller—­like Sir John Mandeville.  With an amazing show of truth he was continually deceiving people.  “He was a great, a truly great liar, perhaps the greatest liar that ever lived."*

William Minto.

Finding that Robinson Crusoe was such a success, Defoe began to write other stories.  He wrote of thieves, pirates and rogues.  These stories have the same show of truth as Robinson Crusoe.  Defoe, no doubt, got the ideas for them from the stories of the rogues with whom he mixed in prison.  But they have nearly all been forgotten, for although they are clever the heroes and heroines are coarse and the story of their adventures is unpleasant reading.  Yet as history, showing us the state of the people in the days of Queen Anne and of George I, they are useful.

Defoe was now well off.  He had built himself a handsome house surrounded by a pleasant garden.  He had carriages and horses and lived in good style with his wife and beautiful daughters.  There seemed to be no reason why he should not live happily and at ease for the rest of his life.  But suddenly one day, for some unknown reason, he fled from his comfortable home into hiding.  Why he did this no one can tell.  For two years he lived a homeless, skulking fugitive.  Then in 1731 he died, if not in poverty at least in loneliness and distress of mind.

BOOKS TO READ

Robinson Crusoe, abridged by John Lang.  Robinson Crusoe, retold by Edith Robarts, illustrated by J. Hassall, R. I. Robinson Crusoe (Everyman’s Library).

Chapter LXIII SWIFT—­THE “JOURNAL TO STELLA”