Listings for Author:
Daniel Defoe
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Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
[Permitted Sunday reading for the children of the family]
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
Henry Mayhew interviews a female crossing sweeper: "When my sight was better I used to be very partial to reading; but I can't see the print now, sir. I used to read the bible and the newspaper. Story books I have read too, but not many novels. Yes, Robinson Crusoe I know..."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charwoman, he bought up all the cheap reprints he could afford and kept notes on fifty-eight of them... There were Emerson's essays, Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies, Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast Table, Lamb's Essays of Elia, classic biogaphies (Boswell on Johnson, Lockhart on Scott, Carlyle on Sterling), several Waverley novels, Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, Pilgrim's Progress, The Imitation of Christ, Shakespeare's sonnets, Tennyson, Browning, William Morris and Palgrave's Golden Treasury.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Philip Inman Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
Dorothy Wordsworth to William Wordsworth, 23 April 1812: 'John is certainly much quicker in reading than he was. He has read very hard and taken up the Book frequently himself - this with the hope of getting into his new history of England when he has finished Robinson Crusoe.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Wordsworth Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, written by himself
'... in 1811 S[ara] H[utchinson] mentioned that Herbert Southey "can read Robinson Crusoe or any Book".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Herbert Southey Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, written by himself
'in 1804 [Robert] Southey noted that Hartley Coleridge "never has read, nor will read, beyond Robinson's departure from the island."'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hartley Coleridge Print: Book
Daniel Defoe :
'In [Ashington Mechanics' Institute] library [Chester Armstrong] discovered a "new world", a "larger environment" in Defoe, Marryat, Fenimore Cooper, Dickens and Jules Verne.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Chester Armstrong Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'"I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child's book, of not less interest than even The Iliad." It was Pilgrim's Progress, with wonderful woodcut illustrations. And from there it was a sort step to Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Hugh Miller Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Soldier's son Joseph Barker... first read the Bible "chiefly as a work of history and was very greatly delighted with many of its stories... One effect was to lead me to regard miracles as nothing improbable". Consequently his response to Pilgrim's Progress was exactly the same: "My impression was, that the whole was literal and true"...Ghost stories, highwayman stories, fairy tales, Paradise Lost and Daniel Defoe were all equally credible. "I was naturally a firm believer in all that was gravely spoken or printed", he recalled. "I doubted nothing that was found in books... I had no idea at the time I read Robinson Crusoe, that there were such things as novels, works of fiction, in existence".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Barker Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'the only fiction [Robert] Roberts read as a boy was an abridged Welsh-language Robinson Crusoe'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Roberts Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'As a child, William Heaton the Yorkshire weaver-poet, "rambled with Christian from his home in the wilderness to the Celestial City; mused over his hair-breadth escapes, and his conflict with Giant Despair", enjoying it exactly as he enjoyed Roderick Random and Robinson Crusoe.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Heaton Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'For John Clare [Robinson Crusoe] was "the first book of any merit I got hold of after I could read", and it set in motion an early ferment: "New ideas from the perusal of this book was now up in arms, new Crusoes and new islands of solitude was continually muttered over in my journeys to and from school".'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: John Clare Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
Either at school or at home I read all the classics considered necessary for children: 'Treasure Island', 'Kidnapped', 'Little Women', 'David Copperfield', 'Ivanhoe', 'Robinson Crusoe'. I suppose I enjoyed them; I certainly did not resent or avoid them. Very occasionally some incident would seem to connect with my own life: the doings of the Spanish Inquisition in 'Westward Ho!' for example, fitted in exactly with what I had heard about Roman Catholics. But on the whole the themes appeared completely abstract and impersonal, even when the author intended a message to strike home. 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' did not cause me a moment's concern for the plight of Negro slaves in America, and neither did 'The Water Babies' for the sufferings of the child chimney-sweeps, not because these situations had been done away with, but because no book stirred me in that way...
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Patricia Beer Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'the book that featured most prominently in [Joseph Greenwood's] memoirs was a cheap edition of Robinson Crusoe. "To me Daniel Defoe's book was a wonderful thing, it opened up a world of adventure, new countries and peoples, full of brightness and change; an unlimited expanse".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Joseph Greenwood Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'At age twelve, recalled ploughboy John Ward, "I devoured - not read, that's too tame an expression - Robinson Crusoe, and that book gave me all my spirit of adventure, which has made me strike new ideas before old ones became antiquated, and landed me in many troubles, travels, and difficulties".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: John Ward Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'[Robinson Crusoe] was Thomas Jordan's favorite book, read through in one sitting at age eleven. The promise of "faraway places fired my imagination" and ultimately inspired him, the son of an iliterate miner, to leave the pits of his Durham mining village and join the Army'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Jordan Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'"The words I didn't understand I just skipped over, yet managed to get a good idea of what the story was about", wrote James Murray, the son of a Scottish shoemaker. "By the time I was ten or eleven years old I did not need to skip any words in any books because by then I had a good grounding in roots and derivations". Crusoe so aroused his appetite for literature that, when his school teacher asked the class to list all the books they had read, Murray rattled off titles by Ballantyne, Kingston and Dickens until "I realised the eyes of everyone in the room were on me..."'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: James Murray Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'At the close of the nineteenth century, on a farm in Derbyshire Peak District, Robinson Crusoe was read aloud every winter and never palled on the audience. As Alison Uttley remembered, it was even more popular than Pilgrim's Progress: "Christian on his journey met giants and evil men, but Robinson Crusoe fought against the elements, the wind and rain, lightning and tempest, droughts and floods. He lived a life they could understand, catching the food he ate, sowing and reaping corn, making bread, taming beasts... The family shared the life of Robinson Crusoe, hoping and fearing with him, experiencing his sorrows..."'
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Alison Uttley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'During these early years [Daphne du Maurier] filled her head with tales of adventure, romances, histories and popular novels, including such books as Treasure Island, The Snow Queen, The Wreck of the Grosvenor, Old St Paul's, The Tower of London, Nicholas Nickleby, Mr Midshipman Easy, Bleak House, Robinson Crusoe, The Mill on the Floss, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, The Picture of Dorian Grey, Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. The seeds of her own novels were planted during these intensive, sometimes acted-out, reading sessions. The fascination with the sea, the importance of an historical sense of place, the theme of the dual personality, are all reflected in her reading during these formative years'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Daphne du Maurier Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Rose... remembers her father reading to them - Dickens, Scott, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Meredith, Tom Jones, The Three Musketeers, Don Quixote, and, curiously, The Origin of Species'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: George Macaulay Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : "Robinson Crusoe"
'every day Spike Mays ran to his East Anglia school, where he studied "Robinson Crusoe", "Gulliver's Travels" and "Tales from Shakespeare".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Spike Mays Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
"Robert Blatchford, growing up in Halifax in the 1860s, read from the penny library there Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Southey's Life of Nelson, Dickens's The Old Curiosity Shop, and novels by Captain Marryat, the Brontes, and Miss M. E. Braddon."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Blatchford Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
[A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Private in an infantry regiment, formerly a skilled painter, age eighteen. Spends evenings painting, reading, working on model airplanes. Has attended art school....Patronizes Free Library. Has read The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, David Copperfield, Bulwer Lytton, Ballantyne, Henty, Robinson Crusoe, Quentin Dirward, Ivanhoe, Waverley, Kidnapped, Treasure Island and Two Years before the Mast, as well as the travels of David Livingstone, Fridtjof Nansen, Matthew Peary and Scott of the Antarctic'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: questionaire respondent Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
"I began Robinson Crusoe with Laura. I think that she will be up to it & we made a pretty good start."
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Leslie Stephen Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Although mainly an outdoor boy Rider began to read several popular romances of the day...: "I loved those books that other boys love and I love them still. I well remember a little scene which took place when I was a child of eight or nine. Robinson Crusoe held me in its grasp and I was expected to go to church. I hid beneath a bed with Robinson Crusoe and was in due course discovered by an elder sister and governess, who, on my refusing to come out, resorted to force. Then followed a struggle that was quite Homeric. The two ladies tugged as best they might, but I clung to Crusoe and the legs of the bed, and kicked till, perfectly exhausted, they took their departure in no very Christian frame of mind, leaving me panting indeed, but triumphant".'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Henry Rider Haggard Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'East End socialist Walter Southgate remembered that Dick Turpin and Buffalo Bill stories "were condemned by our teachers (all from middle class backgrounds) who would confiscate them", but he appreciated the generic similarities to "Robinson Crusoe", the Waverley novels and "The Last of the Mohicans"'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Walter Southgate Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
"And how fared the growth of this child's mind the while? Thanks to the care of his mother, who had sent him to the penny school, he had learnt to read, and the desire to read had been awakened. Books, however, were very scarce. The Bible and Bunyan were the principle; he committed many chapters of the former to memory, and accepted all Bunyan's allegory as bona fide history. Afterwards, he obtained access to 'Robinson Crusoe', a few old Wesleyan magazines and some battle histories. These constituted his sole reading, until he came up to London, at the age of fifteen, as an errand boy."
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Massey Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Robert Collyer grew up in a blacksmith's home with only a few books - "Pilgrim's Progress", "Robinson Crusoe", Goldsmith's histories of England and Rome - but their basic language made them easy to absorb and excellent training for a future clergyman:. "I think it was then I must have found the germ... of my lifelong instinct for the use of simple Saxon words and sentences which has been of some worth to me in the work I was finally called to do".'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Robert Collyer Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'W.J. Brown was introduced to literature by "Robinson Crusoe", "She", "The Last of the Mohicans", and "Around the World in Eighty Days", and he never moved far beyond that level. He tried "The Idiot" and "The Brothers Karamazov", but found them too depressing, perhaps because his life was anything but Dostoevskian'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: William John Brown Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : History of the Devil or The Political History of t
'Afternoon reading some History of the Devil'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Adam Mackie Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : The Political History of the Devil
'Spent the evening reading History of the Devil, a shallow subject.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Adam Mackie Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'[Howard] Spring was the son of a Cardiff gardener who bought his children secondhand copies of "Tom Jones" and "Swiss Family Robinson", and read aloud from "Pilgrim's Progress", "Robinson Crusoe" and Charles Dickens'.
Century: 1850-1899 / 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Tour through the whole island of Great Britain
'She used passages from Defoe's "Tour through the whole island of Great Britain" to prepare her two boys for a visit to Windsor Castle in 1792: "I did it", she wrote, "that they might have their observation raised when we carried them there. There is a great difference between showing and seeing - the one is merely Corporeal the other unites the mental to the bodily powers and lays in a stock of ideas". [reading aloud for didactic purposes].
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Anna Larpent Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'I got my [first] peep into "Robinson Crusoe" and the "Arabian Nights" at the home of an old uncle of mine. But even though these two wonderful books have been read and enjoyed by millions, I am afraid I could never thoroughly master the contents of either of them.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: William Tinsley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
?At length, "Robinson Crusoe" ? that ever-exciting day dream of boys ? fell in our way. I read it to him, as I had done the others, and for a long time both Sam?s ideas and mine were owned and fascinated by the descriptions of sea-dangers, shipwrecks, and lone islands with savages, and far-off countries teeming with riches and plenty.?
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Bamford Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'In this way I beguiled many a tedious hour at the time I am now referring to, and also during several years following, towards the close of which I thus contrived to read "Robinson Crusoe" and a brief "History of England", with some other books whose titles I do not now remember. The books that first fell in my way, besides those that belonged to my parents, were few and of little worth.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Among these books was a brief abstract of that amusing story "Robinson Crusoe", which I read with much eagerness and satisfaction. I only regretted its brevity, for I became so deeply interested in the fortunes of its hero and of his Man Friday, that I would fain have read a full account of their adventures.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas Carter Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'I now became anxious to read all that came in any way, and like most juveniles, felt a deep interest in the reading of "Robinson Crusoe", Philip Quarll, Boyle's Travels, and other such books as our school library contained.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Christopher Thomson Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'the diverse collection of literature that Christopher Thomson, a sometime shipwright, actor and housepainter, worked his way through [...] included adventure stories such as "Robinson Crusoe" and the imitative "Philip Quarll", books of travel, such as Boyle's "Travels", some un-named religious tracts, a number of "classics" including Milton and Shakespeare, some radical newspapers, particularly Cobbett's "Register" and Wooller's "Black Dwarf", mechanics' magazines, and some occasional items of contemporary literature, including the novels of Scott and the poetry of Byron.'
Century: 1700-1799 / 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Christopher Thomson Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Charles Shaw's dependance upon a small Sunday school library in Tunstall [...] imparted a magnificent if involuntary scope to his education: '"I read "Robinson Crusoe" and a few other favourite boys' books [...] After these the most readable I could find was Rollin's "Ancient History". His narratives opened a new world [...] [which] I regarded as remote from Tunstall and England as those other worlds I read of in Dick's "Christian Philosopher," which book I found in the library too ... Then I read Milton's "Paradise Lost", Klopstock's "Messiah", and later on, Pollock's "Course of Time", and Gilfillan's "Bards of the Bible".These books may look a strange assortment for a boy of fourteen or fifteen to read, but [...] they just happened to fall into my hands"'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Shaw Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : A Journal of the Plague Year
Harriet Martineau, Journal, 28 December 1837: 'Read Defoe's "Plague." Was somewhat disappointed [...] The best part is where he describes the reception of the news of the decrease in the bills of mortality.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Harriet Martineau Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Jenny & James [the Austen's servants] are walked to Charmouth this afternoon; - I am glad to have such an amusement for him - as I am very anxious for his being at once quiet and happy. - He can read, & I must get him some books. Unfortunately he has read the 1st vol. of Robinson Crusoe. We have the Pinckards Newspaper however, which I shall take care to lend him.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: James anon Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
[Marginalia]
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Taylor Coleridge Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Until then, all the books I possessed had been children's annuals and the like. Except for "Robinson Crusoe", very few of the children's classics had come my way. I had read no Kipling nor "The Wind in the Willows" nor "Alice".'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Norman Nicholson Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : [unknown]
'It [central London] was truly a wonder world, for I seeing it not merely with my eyes of flesh but with the eyes of heightened imagination; -seeing it not only through spectacles manufactured by an optician, but through glasses supplied by magicians names Charles Dickens, Walter Scott, William Makepeace Thackeray, Joseph Addison, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, Toby Smollett, Sam Johnson and Will Shakespeare himself. Had I scraped an acquaintance with all these before I was fifteen? I knew them well! -and that was the trouble. I was book hungry, and I found a land where books were accessible in a quantity and variety sufficient to satisfy even my uncontrolled voracity.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Later on I found at the bottom of a cupboard some of volumes -Addison's "Spectator", Pope's "Homer", and a few other things. My grandmother -who also devoured books in great gulps -gave me a "Robinson Crusoe", and lent me volumes containing four "Waverley Novels" apiece. Much about the same time my father got bound up a set of Dickens's novels he had bought in weekly parts. They were in the popular quarto edition with drawings by Fred Barnard, John Mahony and others. These were a real treasure -and all the more so as my father was an ardent Dickens "fan" who rather despised Scott as a "romantic" and a "Tory". His mother (born in 1815, so old enough to have read the "Waverley Novels" when they were still comparatively new things) rather sniffed at Dickens, and definitely preferred both Scott and Thackeray. She gave me "Vanity Fair" as an antidote to "David Copperfield" and added a Shakespeare, and a bundle of "paperback" editions -Fielding, Smollett, Fennimore Cooper and Captain Marryatt.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Thomas A. Jackson Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : The Political History of the Devil, as well Ancient as Modern
'Did you ever read-of course you have though-Defoe?s history of the Devil? What a capital thing it is. I bought it for a couple of shillings yesterday morning, and have been quite absorbed in it ever since.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Charles Dickens Print: BookManuscript: Unknown
Daniel Defoe : Journal of the Plague Year
'Wednesday, 7th April, Spent the evening writing. Cutting my cigarettes to one if it has any bearing on my ill-health. Read ? ?Journal of the Plague Year? (Defoe)'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Gerald Moore Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'I read a little of "Robinson Crusoe" that is how I spent my evening'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth (Betsey) Wynne Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of 'Robinson' read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat that day, painfully learning to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, and with entire delight, read 'Robinson'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chapter of 'Robinson' read aloud in a farm kitchen. Up to that moment he had sat content, huddled in his ignorance, but he left that farm another man. There were day-dreams, it appeared, divine day-dreams, written and printed and bound, and to be bought for money and enjoyed at pleasure. Down he sat that day, painfully learning to read Welsh, and returned to borrow the book. It had been lost, nor could he find another copy but one that was in English. Down he sat once more, learned English, and at length, and with entire delight, read 'Robinson'.
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: anon Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Colonel Jack - The History and Remarkable Life Of the truly Honourable Col. Jacque, commonly call'd Col. Jack, who was Born a Gentleman, put 'Prentice to a Pick-Pocket, was Six and Twenty Years a Thief, and then Kidnapp'd to Virginia, Came back a Merchant
'If you want to read an agreeable book, read Galownin's narrative of his confinement in and escape from Japan; and I think it may do very well for reading out, which I believe is your practice - a practice which I approve rather than follow: - and neglect it from mere want of virtue. I think also you may read De Foe's Life of Colonel Jack, - entertaining enough when his heroe is a scoundrel, but waxing dull as it gets moral. I never set you any difficult tasks in reading, but am as indulgent to you as I am to myself'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Sydney Smith Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurences, as Well Public as Private, Which Happened in London During the last Great Visitation in 1665
'Read Suetonius and Defoe on the Plague'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurences, as Well Public as Private, Which Happened in London During the last Great Visitation in 1665
'Finish Defoe'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
'read Robinson Crusoe'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
'Read Robinson Crusoe. S. finishes the tragedy of Bonduca to me'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
'Write - read Astronomy - Finish Robinson Crusoe'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : System of Magick, A; or, a History of the black art. Being an historical account of mankind's most early dealings with the Devil; and how the acquaintance on both sides first began
'Read Treatise on Magic & Malthus'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mary Shelley Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Memoirs of a Cavalier
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842: 'I have read the "Cavalier" -- but years ago. I must see it again. Nothing in Defoe fastened upon me much, except Robinson Crusoe & The Plague'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842: 'I have read the "Cavalier" -- but years ago. I must see it again. Nothing in Defoe fastened upon me much, except Robinson Crusoe & The Plague'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : A Journal of the Plague Year
Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842: 'I have read the "Cavalier" -- but years ago. I must see it again. Nothing in Defoe fastened upon me much, except Robinson Crusoe & The Plague'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Barrett Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain
Saturday 27 December 1930: 'We came down [to Rodmell] on Tuesday, & next day my cold was the usual influenza, & I am in bed with the usual temperature [...] I moon torpidly through book after book: Defoe's Tour; Rowan's auto[biograph]y; Benson's Memoirs; Jeans; in the familiar way [...] Oh & I've read Q[ueen]. V[ictoria]'s letters [...] Q.V. entirely unaesthetic; a kind of Prussian competence, & belief in herself her only prominences [...] Knew her own mind. But the mind radically commonplace.'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Virginia Woolf Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : [unknown]
'As you ask me for my opinion I shall try and give it as truly as I can; otherwise it will be of no use [...] In the first place you say you do not call The 3 paths a novel; but the work is in the form which always assumes that name, nor do I think it is one to be quarrelled with. I suppose you mean that you used the narrative form merely to {convey} introduce certain opinions & thoughts. If so you had better have condensed them into the shape of an Essay. Those in Friends in Council &c. are admirable examples of how much may be said on both sides of any question without any {dogma} decision being finally arrived at, & certainly without any dogmatism. [Gaskell then discusses the merits of the concise essay form] But I believe in spite of yr objection to the term 'novel' you do wish to 'narrate', - and I believe you can do it if you try, - but I think you must observe what is [italics] out [end italics] of you, instead of examining what is [italics] in [end italics] you. [Gaskell explains the merits of this at length]. Just read a few pages of De Foe &c - and you will see the healthy way in which he sets [italics] objects [end italics] not [italics] feelings [end italics] before you. [She advises Grey to use what he observes through every day contact with real people] Think if you can not imagine a complication of events in their life which would form a good plot. (Your plot in The Three paths is very poor; you have not thought enough about it - simply used it s a medium. [She discusses the advantages of tight plotting and advises] Don't intrude yourself into your description. If you but think eagerly of your story till [italics] you see it in action [end italics], words, good simple strong words will come. [she then criticises his overuse of epithets, overlong conversations and allusions, concluding] You see I am very frank-spoken. But I believe you are worth it.'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : [novels]
'In general the coterie here are disposed to think it not by the same author as "Waverley", etc., and to think it superior to all three. I myself place it above Guy and Monkbarns, but "Waverley" being my first love, I canot give him up. [italics] as a whole [end italics], however, I believe it does bear the palm, and it surprises me by not sinking into flatness, after the return of Morton from abroad; which was a very slippery place for [italics] you [end italics], who profess never knowing what you are going to write.... I must mention a remark Mrs Weddell has repeatedly made: "this has the [italics] nature [end italics] of Daniel Defoe's novels, tho' with a higher style of writing. I can hardly forbear fancying every word of it true". And we are all agreed that instead of perverting history, it elucidates it, and would give a person partially acquainted with it the desire to be more so'.
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Mrs Weddell Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Moll Flanders
In Commonplace Book entries made during 1926, E. M. Forster comments upon, and transcribes passages from, Defoe's Moll Flanders, remarking upon the work as 'A puzzling book -- gynomorphic, [with] not one stitch of the man-made', and discussing aspects including character and form.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Robinson Crusoe an English book -- and only the English could have accepted it as adult literature: comforted by feeling that the life of adventure could be led by a man duller than themselves. No gaiety wit or invention [...] Boy scout manual. Unlike Moll or Roxana or Selkirk himself, Crusoe never develops or modifies. As much bored as I was 30 years ago. Its only literary merit is the well conceived crescendo of the savages. Historically important, no doubt, and the parent of other insincerities, such as Treasure Island [...] I shan't read Part II. [goes on to quote from, and comment upon, text further]'
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'Robinson Crusoe an English book -- and only the English could have accepted it as adult literature: comforted by feeling that the life of adventure could be led by a man duller than themselves. No gaiety wit or invention [...] Boy scout manual. Unlike Moll or Roxana or Selkirk himself, Crusoe never develops or modifies. As much bored as I was 30 years ago. Its only literary merit is the well conceived crescendo of the savages. Historically important, no doubt, and the parent of other insincerities, such as Treasure Island [...] I shan't read Part II. [goes on to quote from, and comment upon, text further]'
Century: 1850-1899 Reader/Listener/Group: Edward Morgan Forster Print: Book
Daniel Defoe :
'The [Tennyson] boys had one great advantage [as home-educated pupils], the run of their father's excellent library. Amongst the authors most read by them were Shakespeare, Milton, Burke, Goldsmith, Rabelais, Sir William Jones, Addison, Swift, Defoe, Cervantes, Bunyan and Buffon.'
Century: 1800-1849 Reader/Listener/Group: Tennyson children (boys) Print: Book
Daniel Defoe :
'He [Johnson] told us, that he had given Mrs. Montagu a catalogue of all Daniel Defoe's works of imagination; most, if not all of which, as well as of his other works, he now enumerated, allowing a considerable share of merit to a man, who, bred a tradesman, had written so variously and so well. Indeed, his "Robinson Crusoe" is enough of itself to establish his reputation'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'He [Johnson] told us, that he had given Mrs. Montagu a catalogue of all Daniel Defoe's works of imagination; most, if not all of which, as well as of his other works, he now enumerated, allowing a considerable share of merit to a man, who, bred a tradesman, had written so variously and so well. Indeed, his "Robinson Crusoe" is enough of itself to establish his reputation'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: James Boswell Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Memoirs of Captain George Carleton
' [Johnson having asked for details about Lord Peterborough] "But, (said his Lordship [Lord Eliot,) the best account of Lord Peterborough that I have happened to meet with, is in "Captain Carleton's Memoirs". Carleton was descended of an ancestor who had distinguished himself at the siege of Derry. He was an officer; and, what was rare at that time, had some knowledge of engineering". Johnson said, he had never heard of the book. Lord Eliot had it at Port Eliot; but, after a good deal of enquiry, procured a copy in London, and sent it to Johnson, who told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he was going to bed when it came, but was so much pleased with it, that he sat up till he had read it through, and found in it such an air of truth, that he could not doubt of its authenticity; adding, with a smile, (in allusion to Lord Eliot's having recently been raised to the peerage,) "I did not think a [italics] young Lord [end italics] could have mentioned to me a book in the English history that was not known to me".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Lord Eliot Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Memoirs of Captain George Carleton
' [Johnson having asked for details about Lord Peterborough] "But, (said his Lordship [Lord Eliot,) the best account of Lord Peterborough that I have happened to meet with, is in "Captain Carleton's Memoirs". Carleton was descended of an ancestor who had distinguished himself at the siege of Derry. He was an officer; and, what was rare at that time, had some knowledge of engineering". Johnson said, he had never heard of the book. Lord Eliot had it at Port Eliot; but, after a good deal of enquiry, procured a copy in London, and sent it to Johnson, who told Sir Joshua Reynolds that he was going to bed when it came, but was so much pleased with it, that he sat up till he had read it through, and found in it such an air of truth, that he could not doubt of its authenticity; adding, with a smile, (in allusion to Lord Eliot's having recently been raised to the peerage,) "I did not think a [italics] young Lord [end italics] could have mentioned to me a book in the English history that was not known to me".'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Samuel Johnson Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Journal of the Plague Year
'For Sublimity & at the same time Familiarity with Life Nothing strikes one more than Clarendon's Account of the Fire of London - De Foe's Plague is still stronger but that is a Romance'.
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Hester Lynch Thrale Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : Robinson Crusoe
'[report by Mrs Ward of the library at her Passmore Edwards Settlement] boys were sitting hunched up over "Masterman Ready", or the ever-adored "Robinson Crusoe"; girls were deep in "Anderson's [sic] Fairy Tales" or "The Cuckoo Clock", the little ones were reading Mr Stead's "Books for the Bairns" or looking at pictures'.
Century: 1900-1945 Reader/Listener/Group: boys at the Passmore Edwards Settlement Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : The Family Instructor
[Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 17 September 1760:] 'I have picked up a very strange [book], but which, with some faults that would make it dangerous to some sort of people, and some excellencies in it that would make it excessively despised by others, has a great deal of merit. It is written by the author of Robinson Crusoe, and called "The Family Instructor," and is so engaging, that when I had once taken it up I knew not how to lay it down again, and have recommended it to my mother as an amusing book, that with all her nicety of taste will not set her to sleep.'
Century: 1700-1799 Reader/Listener/Group: Catherine Talbot Print: Book
Daniel Defoe : A Journal of the Plague Year
'Meeting held at 70 Northcourt Avenue: 18. 6. 35.
Charles E. Stansfield in the Chair
1. Minutes of last read and approved.
2. The Secretary then read a letter from Marjorie C. Cole, expressing her interest in the Book Club and offering us a book “Gone Rambling” by Cecil Roberts which she had recently read with enjoyment. [...]
[...]
6. The large subject of London was then opened by Howard Smith. He spoke of the extraordinary insistence of the divergent views as its origin, leaning to the opinion that it owed its beginnings to to a variety of causes.
[...]
7. Extracts from Defoe’s Journal of the Great Plague were then read by Victor Alexander.
[...]
8. From Defoe we turned to Pepys, and Reginald Robson described the Great Fire.
[...]
9. We next enjoyed a delightful picture of old London which Edith Goadby gave us, making the acquaintance of Gabriel Bardon the locksmith, his pretty daughter Dolly and Simon the apprentice. It was all too short, but at least we left them happily seated before their jolly round of beef, their Yorkshire cake and quaintly shaped jug of ale.
10. A further scene was depicted for us by Ethel Stevens, old Crosby Hall, Chelsea Hospital, Cheyne walk as it used to be, and Carlyle’s house, where he entertained Tennyson in the kitchen. We were introduced to John Stuart Mill and his great concern over the loss of his fiend’s manuscript of the French Revolution, and we took glimpses at William de Morgan + Sir Thomas More.
11. Finally Charles Stansfield read us Wordsworth’s Sonnet composed on Westminster Bridge, and Henry Marriage Wallis quoted happily ten lines from William Morris.'
