Description

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There is no shortage of explanations for the longevity of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, which has been interpreted as both religious allegory and frontier myth, with Crusoe seen as an example of the self-sufficient adventurer and the archetypal colonizer and capitalist. Defoe’s original has been reimagined multiple times in legions of Robinsonade or castaway stories, but the Crusoe myth is far from spent. This wideranging collection brings together eleven scholars who suggest new and unfamiliar ways of thinking about this most familiar of works, and who ask us to consider the enduring appeal of “Crusoe,” more recognizable today than ever before.

About the Author

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ANDREAS K. MUELLER is a professor and chair of the Department of English at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.
 
GLYNIS RIDLEY is a professor and chair of the Department of English at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
 

Praise For…

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"The editors have gathered a collection of excellent essays by eminent scholars on the continuing relevance and power after three hundred years of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Informative and provocative, these essays provide an essential testimonial to the cultural and philosophical implications of Defoe’s classic novel through those centuries into our own."
— John Richetti

"This rich, wide-ranging volume brings into view the kinds of concerns and contexts that have informed the reception of Robinson Crusoe itself as well as countless remediations: gender, individualism, imperialism; pantomime, cinema, animal stories for children; more variously, Newton, tobacco, the sequel, and Crusoeian iconicity. This collection is valuable both for its deepening contribution to Defoe studies and its broadening relevance to a larger conversation about the genres of the Robinsonade."
— Rivka Swenson

"[An]outstanding collection of essays that demonstrates the enduring significance of literature’s most famous castaway."
— Restoration Journal

"A highly entertaining and enlightening collection of contemporary essays."
— The Eighteenth-Century Intelligencer