The universal fame of The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe is second only to the Bible. Notwithstanding its simple narrative style, as well as the absence of the supposedly indispensable love motive, no modern book can boast of such world-wide esteem.
Written by Daniel Defoe and published in England in 1719 by William Taylor, the Life and Adventures won immediate popularity. Its phenomenal success called forth five reprintings in rapid succession. In the following year came translations into French, German and Dutch, marking the beginning of an unprecedented series of translations into many other languages and dialects.
And now, after two centuries, the story still stands secure and enduring—a monumental human document.
Hundreds of illustrated editions of The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe have been published, and many more will follow, but I, like most illustrators enthusiastic in their work, have anticipated for years the opportunity which is now offered to me in the present edition.
The outstanding appeal of this fascinating romance to me personally is the remarkably sustained sensation one enjoys of Crusoe’s contact with the elements—the sea and the sun, the night and the storms, the sand, rocks, vegetation and animal life. In few books can the reader breathe, live and move with his hero so intensely, so easily and so consistently throughout the narrative. In Robinson Crusoe we have it; here is a story that becomes history, history living and moving, carrying with it irresistibly the compelling motive of a lone man’s conquest over what seems to be inexorable Fate.
Do my pictures add a little to the vividness of this story? Do I aid a little in the clearer vizualization of Robinson Crusoe as he moves about on his sunny island? That is the most I can hope for.
N. C. Wyeth.
Chadd’s Ford, Pa., 1920.
