This book explores significant problems in the fiction of Daniel Defoe. Maximillian E. Novak investigates a number of elements in Defoe's work by probing his interest in rendering of reality (what Defoe called "the Thing itself"). Novak examines Defoe's interest in the relationship between prose fiction and painting, as well as the various ways in which Defoe's woks were read by contemporaries and by those novelists who attempted to imitate and comment upon his Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe decades after its publication. In this book, Novak attempts to consider the uniqueness and imaginativeness of various aspects of Defoe's writings including his way of evoking the seeming inability of language to describe a vivid scene or moments of overwhelming emotion, his attraction to the fiction of islands and utopias, his gradual development of the concepts surrounding Crusoe's cave, his fascination with the horrors of cannibalism, and some of the ways he attempted to defend his work and serious fiction in general. Most of all, Transformations, Ideology, and the Real in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Other Narratives establishes the complexity and originality of Defoe as a writer of fiction.

This book explores significant problems in the fiction of Daniel Defoe. Maximillian E. Novak investigates a number of elements in Defoe's work by probing his interest in rendering of reality (what Defoe called "the Thing itself"). Novak examines Defoe's interest in the relationship between prose fiction and painting, as well as the various ways in which Defoe's woks were read by contemporaries and by those novelists who attempted to imitate and comment upon his Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe decades after its publication. In this book, Novak attempts to consider the uniqueness and imaginativeness of various aspects of Defoe's writings including his way of evoking the seeming inability of language to describe a vivid scene or moments of overwhelming emotion, his attraction to the fiction of islands and utopias, his gradual development of the concepts surrounding Crusoe's cave, his fascination with the horrors of cannibalism, and some of the ways he attempted to defend his work and serious fiction in general. Most of all, Transformations, Ideology, and the Real in Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Other Narratives establishes the complexity and originality of Defoe as a writer of fiction.

Robinson Crusoe, an adventure tale that fascinated such thinkers as John-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf, and J. M. Coetzee, has been an international best-seller for three hundred years. An adventure tale involving cannibals, pirates, and shipwrecks, it embodies economic, social, political, and philosophical themes that continue to be relevant today. Moreover, the notion of isolation on a deserted island and a fascination with survival continue to be central to countless popular cinema and television programs. This edition of the novel with its introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes provides a uniquely scholarly presentation of the novel. There has been no other edition like it.

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.

Defoe’s The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was almost always published together with The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Only after 1950 was the first volume printed alone—a shorter work for some classes. But in addition to fulfilling the promise of the first volume, The Farther Adventures is an exciting adventure novel by itself. Crusoe returns to his island to learn about his colony, and then travels to Madagascar, India, and China before returning to England after some exciting encounters. Complete with an introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes, this is an edition like no other.

Imprisoned several times, reviled by enemies, hunted by murderous mobs, and yet sometimes fêted by the country's most powerful leaders, Daniel Defoe (1660-1731) led an extraordinarily exciting life. Above all, he was a creator of fictions. Examining his life from the perspective most important to the modern reader - his writing career - this biography illuminates the thought and personal experience that fed such masterpieces as Moll Flanders, Robinson Crusoe, and Roxana.

Robinson Crusoe, an adventure tale that fascinated such thinkers as John-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, Virginia Woolf, and J. M. Coetzee, has been an international best-seller for three hundred years. An adventure tale involving cannibals, pirates, and shipwrecks, it embodies economic, social, political, and philosophical themes that continue to be relevant today. Moreover, the notion of isolation on a deserted island and a fascination with survival continue to be central to countless popular cinema and television programs. This edition of the novel with its introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes provides a uniquely scholarly presentation of the novel. There has been no other edition like it.

Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoewith his Vision of the Angelick World, first published in 1720 and considered a sequel to The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, is a collection of essays written in the voice of the Crusoe character. Expressing Defoe's thoughts about many moral questions of the day, the narrator takes up isolation, poverty, religious liberty, and epistemology. Defoe also used this volume to revive his interest in poetry, not the satiric poetry of the early eighteenth century, but the more inspirational verse that appeared in some of his later works. Serious Reflections also includes an imaginative flight in which Crusoe wanders among the planets, a return to the moon voyage impulse of Defoe's 1705 work The Consolidator. Illuminating the ideas and philosophy of this most influential of English novelists, it is invaluable for any student of the period.

Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe was almost always published together with The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe. Only after 1950 was the first volume printed alone-a shorter work for some classes. But in addition to fulfilling the promise of the first volume, The Farther Adventures is an exciting adventure novel by itself. Crusoe returns to his island to learn about his colony, and then travels to Madagascar, India, and China before returning to England after some exciting encounters. Complete with an introduction, line notes, and full bibliographical notes, this is an edition like no other.

The two plots of this tragicomedy concern a black prince sold into slavery and two white women who are husband-hunting in Surinam. Through a discussion of the status of women in the period and of attitudes towards slavery, the editors demonstrated Southerne's complex attempt to explore a parallel between the conditions of slaves and women in contemporary society. They also consider the play in terms of Southerne's high Tory politics and in its own rights as effective drama. Based on a collection of seven editions published within Southerne's life-time, this modern edition includes a section on stage history, with an account of revisions and adaptations, and a detailed comparison between the play and its source in Aphra Behn's novella of the same name.

Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoewith his Vision of the Angelick World, first published in 1720 and considered a sequel to The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, is a collection of essays written in the voice of the Crusoe character. Expressing Defoe’s thoughts about many moral questions of the day, the narrator takes up isolation, poverty, religious liberty, and epistemology. Defoe also used this volume to revive his interest in poetry, not the satiric poetry of the early eighteenth century, but the more inspirational verse that appeared in some of his later works. Serious Reflections also includes an imaginative flight in which Crusoe wanders among the planets, a return to the moon voyage impulse of Defoe’s 1705 work The Consolidator. Illuminating the ideas and philosophy of this most influential of English novelists, it is invaluable for any student of the period.

At the time of his death in 1700, John Dryden was acknowledged as England's greatest writer, his reputation even rivaling that of Shakespeare. Certainly, whether considered as a poet, a dramatist, or as a critic, Dryden far outstripped his contemporaries in the sheer scope and variety of his literary production. The amazing versatility of his pen was matched only by the transformational energy that shapes individual works, from heroic dramas to great satires. For Enchanted Ground, Jayne Lewis and Maximillian E. Novak have brought together many of the world's experts on Dryden, and their essays reflect a range of new, uniquely twenty-first-century views of him. The book is divided into two sections. The first explores Dryden's role as a public poet who had made himself the voice of the restored Stuart court. The second considers Dryden's relationship to the arts and particularly to the past and to Shakespeare. Dryden was a poet for all ages. These essays provide fresh readings of Dryden and bring scholarship on him fully up-to-date.

When Defoe published The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe in 1719, he could not have imagined that Crusoe, Friday, and a footprint in the sand would enjoy global recognition 300 years later. Why-and how-does Crusoe's story resonate today? There is no shortage of explanations for the longevity of Defoe's creation, 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 there is still much more to say-the Crusoe myth is far from spent. This wide-ranging 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.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1977.

"The Projecting Age" was a term the English novelist Daniel Defoe used to describe the end of the seventeenth century. This term could just as easily be used, however, to describe the period known as the "Long Eighteenth Century" (1660-1789). The Age of Projects uses the notion of a project as a key to understanding the massive social, cultural, political, literary, and scientific transitions that occurred in Europe during this time.

The contributors to this collection examine fraudulent, grandiose, altruistic, and idealistic projects that reveal the period's radical breaks from the past and its preoccupation with the future. Examining topics as diverse as Jonathan Swift's satire on the possibility of a computer, to Gottfried Leibniz's effort to build one, and Edmund Burke's prediction that the project of democratic governance would be taken over by greedy adventurers, this volume provides significant insight into the period's ambitions for an improved future.

A well-balanced collection by leading scholars from diverse disciplines, The Age of Projects is a significant contribution to intellectual history, literary history, and the history of science.