| √ | Century of Experience | Evidence | Name of Reader / Listener / Reading Group | Author of Text | Title of Text | Form of Text | | |
| 1850-1899 | [Permitted Sunday reading for the children of the family] | Mary Vivian (Molly) Hughes | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | Henry Mayhew interviews a female crossing sweeper:
"When my sight was better I used to be very partial to reading; ... | Mary | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'Philip Inman conveyed a ... specific sense of the uses of literacy for an early Labour MP. The son of a widowed charw... | Philip Inman | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | Dorothy Wordsworth to William Wordsworth, 23 April 1812: 'John is certainly much quicker in reading than he was. He ha... | John Wordsworth | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | '... in 1811 S[ara] H[utchinson] mentioned that Herbert Southey "can read Robinson Crusoe or any Book".' | Herbert Southey | Daniel Defoe | Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, written by himself | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'in 1804 [Robert] Southey noted that Hartley Coleridge "never has read, nor will read, beyond Robinson's departure fro... | Hartley Coleridge | Daniel Defoe | Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, written by himself | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'In [Ashington Mechanics' Institute] library [Chester Armstrong] discovered a "new world", a "larger environment" in D... | Chester Armstrong | Daniel Defoe | | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | '"I next succeeded in discovering for myself a child's book, of not less interest than even The Iliad." It was Pilgrim... | Hugh Miller | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Soldier's son Joseph Barker... first read the Bible "chiefly as a work of history and was very greatly delighted with... | Joseph Barker | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'the only fiction [Robert] Roberts read as a boy was an abridged Welsh-language Robinson Crusoe' | Robert Roberts | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'As a child, William Heaton the Yorkshire weaver-poet, "rambled with Christian from his home in the wilderness to the ... | William Heaton | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799
1800-1849 | 'For John Clare [Robinson Crusoe] was "the first book of any merit I got hold of after I could read", and it set in mo... | John Clare | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | Either at school or at home I read all the classics considered necessary for children: 'Treasure Island', 'Kidnapped',... | Patricia Beer | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'the book that featured most prominently in [Joseph Greenwood's] memoirs was a cheap edition of Robinson Crusoe. "To m... | Joseph Greenwood | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'At age twelve, recalled ploughboy John Ward, "I devoured - not read, that's too tame an expression - Robinson Crusoe,... | John Ward | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | '[Robinson Crusoe] was Thomas Jordan's favorite book, read through in one sitting at age eleven. The promise of "faraw... | Thomas Jordan | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899
1900-1945 | '"The words I didn't understand I just skipped over, yet managed to get a good idea of what the story was about", wrot... | James Murray | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899
1900-1945 | 'At the close of the nineteenth century, on a farm in Derbyshire Peak District, Robinson Crusoe was read aloud every w... | Alison Uttley | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'During these early years [Daphne du Maurier] filled her head with tales of adventure, romances, histories and popular... | Daphne du Maurier | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Rose... remembers her father reading to them - Dickens, Scott, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Meredith, T... | George Macaulay | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'every day Spike Mays ran to his East Anglia school, where he studied "Robinson Crusoe", "Gulliver's Travels" and "Tal... | Spike Mays | Daniel Defoe | "Robinson Crusoe" | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "Robert Blatchford, growing up in Halifax in the 1860s, read from the penny library there Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, Sou... | Robert Blatchford | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | [A Sheffield Survey organised by Arnold Freeman in 1918, assessing 816 manual workers, gives the following case:] 'Pri... | questionaire respondent | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | "I began Robinson Crusoe with Laura. I think that she will be up to it & we made a pretty good start." | Leslie Stephen | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Although mainly an outdoor boy Rider began to read several popular romances of the day...: "I loved those books that ... | Henry Rider Haggard | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899
1900-1945 | 'East End socialist Walter Southgate remembered that Dick Turpin and Buffalo Bill stories "were condemned by our teach... | Walter Southgate | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | "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 pe... | Gerald Massey | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Robert Collyer grew up in a blacksmith's home with only a few books - "Pilgrim's Progress", "Robinson Crusoe", Goldsm... | Robert Collyer | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'W.J. Brown was introduced to literature by "Robinson Crusoe", "She", "The Last of the Mohicans", and "Around the Worl... | William John Brown | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Afternoon reading some History of the Devil'. | Adam Mackie | Daniel Defoe | History of the Devil or The Political History of t | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Spent the evening reading History of the Devil, a shallow subject.' | Adam Mackie | Daniel Defoe | The Political History of the Devil | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899
1900-1945 | '[Howard] Spring was the son of a Cardiff gardener who bought his children secondhand copies of "Tom Jones" and "Swiss... | | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | 'She used passages from Defoe's "Tour through the whole island of Great Britain" to prepare her two boys for a visit t... | Anna Larpent | Daniel Defoe | Tour through the whole island of Great Britain | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'I got my [first] peep into "Robinson Crusoe" and the "Arabian Nights" at the home of an old uncle of mine. But even t... | William Tinsley | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799
1800-1849 | ?At length, "Robinson Crusoe" ? that ever-exciting day dream of boys ? fell in our way. I read it to him, as I had don... | Samuel Bamford | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799
1800-1849 | 'In this way I beguiled many a tedious hour at the time I am now referring to, and also during several years following... | Thomas Carter | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | 'Among these books was a brief abstract of that amusing story "Robinson Crusoe", which I read with much eagerness and ... | Thomas Carter | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'I now became anxious to read all that came in any way, and like most juveniles, felt a deep interest in the reading o... | Christopher Thomson | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799
1800-1849 | 'the diverse collection of literature that Christopher Thomson, a sometime shipwright, actor and housepainter, worked ... | Christopher Thomson | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Charles Shaw's dependance upon a small Sunday school library in Tunstall [...] imparted a magnificent if involuntary ... | Charles Shaw | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | Harriet Martineau, Journal, 28 December 1837: 'Read Defoe's "Plague." Was somewhat disappointed [...] The best part i... | Harriet Martineau | Daniel Defoe | A Journal of the Plague Year | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Jenny & James [the Austen's servants] are walked to Charmouth this afternoon; - I am glad to have such an amusement f... | James anon | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | [Marginalia] | Samuel Taylor Coleridge | Daniel Defoe | The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'Until then, all the books I possessed had been children's annuals and the like. Except for "Robinson Crusoe", very fe... | Norman Nicholson | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'It [central London] was truly a wonder world, for I seeing it not merely with my eyes of flesh but with the eyes of h... | Thomas A. Jackson | Daniel Defoe | [unknown] | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Later on I found at the bottom of a cupboard some of volumes -Addison's "Spectator", Pope's "Homer", and a few other ... | Thomas A. Jackson | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | '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... | Charles Dickens | Daniel Defoe | The Political History of the Devil, as well Ancient as Modern | Print: BookManuscript: Unknown |
| 1900-1945 | 'Wednesday, 7th April,
Spent the evening writing. Cutting my cigarettes to one if it has any bearing on my ill-healt... | Gerald Moore | Daniel Defoe | Journal of the Plague Year | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | 'I read a little of "Robinson Crusoe" that is how I spent my evening'. | Elizabeth (Betsey) Wynne | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chap... | anon | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | A friend of mine, a Welsh blacksmith, was twenty-five years old and could neither read nor write, when he heard a chap... | anon | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'If you want to read an agreeable book, read Galownin's narrative of his confinement in and escape from Japan; and I t... | Sydney Smith | 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 | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Read Suetonius and Defoe on the Plague' | Mary Shelley | 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 | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Finish Defoe' | Mary Shelley | 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 | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'read Robinson Crusoe' | Mary Shelley | Daniel Defoe | Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Read Robinson Crusoe. S. finishes the tragedy of Bonduca to me' | Mary Shelley | Daniel Defoe | Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Write - read Astronomy - Finish Robinson Crusoe' | Mary Shelley | Daniel Defoe | Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'Read Treatise on Magic & Malthus' | Mary Shelley | 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 | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842:
'I have read the "Cavalier" -- but years ago. I must ... | Elizabeth Barrett | Daniel Defoe | Memoirs of a Cavalier | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842:
'I have read the "Cavalier" -- but years ago. I must ... | Elizabeth Barrett | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | Elizabeth Barrett to Mary Russell Mitford, 27-28 March 1842:
'I have read the "Cavalier" -- but years ago. I must ... | Elizabeth Barrett | Daniel Defoe | A Journal of the Plague Year | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | Saturday 27 December 1930: 'We came down [to Rodmell] on Tuesday, & next day my cold was the usual influenza, & I am i... | Virginia Woolf | Daniel Defoe | A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | '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 f... | Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell | Daniel Defoe | [unknown] | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'In general the coterie here are disposed to think it not by the same author as "Waverley", etc., and to think it supe... | Mrs Weddell | Daniel Defoe | [novels] | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | In Commonplace Book entries made during 1926, E. M. Forster comments upon, and transcribes passages from, Defoe's Mol... | Edward Morgan Forster | Daniel Defoe | Moll Flanders | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'Robinson Crusoe an English book -- and only the English could have accepted it as adult literature: comforted by feel... | Edward Morgan Forster | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1850-1899 | 'Robinson Crusoe an English book -- and only the English could have accepted it as adult literature: comforted by feel... | Edward Morgan Forster | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1800-1849 | 'The [Tennyson] boys had one great advantage [as home-educated pupils], the run of their father's excellent library. A... | Tennyson children (boys) | Daniel Defoe | | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | 'He [Johnson] told us, that he had given Mrs. Montagu a catalogue of all Daniel Defoe's works of imagination; most, if... | Samuel Johnson | Daniel Defoe | | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | 'He [Johnson] told us, that he had given Mrs. Montagu a catalogue of all Daniel Defoe's works of imagination; most, if... | James Boswell | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | ' [Johnson having asked for details about Lord Peterborough] "But, (said his Lordship [Lord Eliot,) the best account o... | Lord Eliot | Daniel Defoe | Memoirs of Captain George Carleton | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | ' [Johnson having asked for details about Lord Peterborough] "But, (said his Lordship [Lord Eliot,) the best account o... | Samuel Johnson | Daniel Defoe | Memoirs of Captain George Carleton | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | 'For Sublimity & at the same time Familiarity with Life Nothing strikes one more than Clarendon's Account of the Fire ... | Hester Lynch Thrale | Daniel Defoe | Journal of the Plague Year | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | '[report by Mrs Ward of the library at her Passmore Edwards Settlement] boys were sitting hunched up over "Masterman R... | boys at the Passmore Edwards Settlement | Daniel Defoe | Robinson Crusoe | Print: Book |
| 1700-1799 | [Catherine Talbot to Elizabeth Carter, 17 September 1760:]
'I have picked up a very strange [book], but which, with... | Catherine Talbot | Daniel Defoe | The Family Instructor | Print: Book |
| 1900-1945 | 'Meeting held at 70 Northcourt Avenue: 18. 6. 35.
Charles E. Stansfield in the Chair
1. Minutes of... | Victor Alexander | Daniel Defoe | A Journal of the Plague Year | Manuscript: Unknown |