First edition of Defoe's masterpiece, the 'Adventures of Robinson Crusoe', hailed as the first English novel; a work that has transcended frontiers, and has become embedded in the world's cultural consciousness. Rare first edition with the famed engraved frontispiece portrait of Robinson Crusoe a map of the island by Clark and Pine, and a world map by Herman Moll.

The Book
The story is thought to be based on the experiences of Alexander Selkirk, who spent four years on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez from 1704 before being rescued by a British Privateer. The adventures of Crusoe and his companion Friday have attained mythical status in the history of Western literature. 'The Farther Adventures' appeared four months later, and relates how Crusoe revisited the island with Friday. "The romance of Crusoe's adventures, the figure of civilized man fending for himself on a desert island, has made an imperishable impression on the mind of man... much of modern science fiction is basically Crusoe's island changed to a planet" (PMM).

"Robinson Crusoe, that immensely subtle, complex book with its simple plot and a character of compelling reality who appears in one archetypal incident after another. Embedded in world cultural consciousness, Robinson Crusoe has never been out of print. Most people still encounter Crusoe in childhood and never forget him. Only the Bible has been printed in more languages. From the very beginning Defoe's impact was international, as was the recognition that Robinson Crusoe was a new literary form with revolutionary power to 'instruct and delight'" (ODNB).

"Defoe's Robinson Cruse, even more so than Swift's Gulliver's Travels, a work on a similar theme, encompasses a dramatic shift in eighteenth century fiction. Though both works now stand on their own as "novels," a term that was certainly not used in the period (as it was more commonly applied to French romances), each work is a unique amalgam of diary, travelogue, romance, utopian fiction, sermon, satire, and religious/ philosophical treatise. This reflects the ethos of the early eighteenth century, when the old forms were often at a loss to describe the fantastic events that were unfolding around them- events that were more fantastic than the wildest imaginings of fiction. The scope of the world was changing at an ever quickening pace; maps could scarcely keep up with the latest discoveries from around the globe, as once invisible lands began tracing their jagged coastlines" (Grasso).

The Map
Many of those who read 'Robinson Crusoe' when it was first published in 1719 may well have been inclined to understand it as a "true" story. Certainly Defoe defended it in these terms in his 'Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' (1720) and the 'Farther Adventures' includes a map of the world by Herman Moll with Crusoe's journey outlined upon it. This map was almost identical to that published in Woodes Rogers's 'A Cruising Voyage around the World' (1712) which was a major source for information on Alexander Selkirk. Defoe thus implied a direct and true relationship between his own text and that of Rogers, and he also provided accurate and plausible latitude and longitude for maritime waypoints, and even for storms, thus supporting his fiction with the signs of a scientific discourse with which his readers were only just becoming familiar and which, given Newton's recent work, and, in 1715, the announcement of a government prize for a way of accurately determining longitude, must have given the novel an air of "science fiction", or of cutting-edge understanding.

The Map of the Island
The map of the island didn't appear until the third book: 'Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe'. The map depicts: "the various adventures experienced by Crusoe during his time on the island as well as the narrative of those left behind on the island as narrated in 'The Farther Adventures'. In the middle is a representation of the bower with the bird sounding out "poor Robin Cruso" in a cartoon bubble. At the bottom, Robinson Crusoe and Friday are shown with the English Captain whose ship will be recaptured and provide the means for leaving the island. The upper right depicts the wicker work house constructed by the English sailors. In the upper part toward the middle is the battle between the settlers and the cannibals after they have set fire to the houses. At the bottom, toward the left, is Friday's rescue of his father, while also on the left are various scenes involving the cannibals feasting around their fire and murdering a victim. The feast scene toward the upper left has various body parts lying about the periphery of the dancers, including a leg, some arms, and a round object that is probably a head. The ladder placed against a hill between the scenes depicting the meeting with the English Captain and Crusoe's bower probably indicates the location of the enclosure where Crusoe had his cave.

"The print is signed, "Clark & Pine sc. 1719," the same John Clark (fl1710–1720) and John Pine (1690–1756) who engraved the frontispiece for 'The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures'. The date of the engraving, as well as the subject matter, opens the possibility that it may originally have been intended for The Farther Adventures either accompanying the map of the globe tracing Crusoe's travels that was used in that volume or as a substitute illustration" (Novak et al).

The Author
Daniel Defoe (c1660-1731) was a vocal supporter of freedom of religion and the press. He played an important part in the 'occasional conformity' conflict in England in the late-1690s and early-1700s, publishing pamphlets which led to his arrest for seditious libel. Nevertheless, he went on to have a successful career as a journalist and novelist, in 1704 founding 'The Review', a periodical discussing international and domestic politics. This brought him to the attention of the government, for whom he became a secret agent working for peace with France and towards union with Scotland.

The Mapmaker
Herman Moll (c1654-1732) was one of the most important figures in the English map trade in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. However, very little is known about his background. It seems likely that he came from Germany, possibly Bremen, and was in London by 1678, when he appears as an engraver working on Moses Pitt's 'The English Atlas'. At the time, London was a major centre of mapmaking, given its standing as an important scientific hub and the capital of a growing empire. There, Moll was a part of an elite intellectual circle that included Dampier and Defoe as well as Jonathan Swift, John Locke, Robert Hooke (who was a patron of the Pitt atlas project), the antiquarian William Stuckey, and the privateer Woodes Rogers, among others. They convened at Jonathan's Coffee House, the famed meeting place on Exchange Alley that was also the site of financial speculation and stockbroking for the city's wealthy investors. Moll was not a successful businessman, and his globes and maps frequently included mistakes - a fact that Swift ridiculed at the end of 'Gulliver's Travels' (1726) as his protagonist is thrown dramatically off course: "I arrived in seven hours to the south-east point of New Holland".