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Summary
Summary
For nearly three centuries, Robinson Crusoe has been the archetypal castaway, the symbol of survival in uninhabited wilds. In this book, Tim Severin adds this enterprising hero to the roster of legendary figures whose adventures he's replicated and whose origins he's explored. With the signature approach to literary and historical sleuthing that has led the New York Times to describe him as "original, audacious, and exuberant," Severin uncovers the seaman's world that captured Daniel Defoe's imagination, recounting dramatic survival stories of sailors, pirates, castaways, and native Americans and replicating their journeys to experience for himself the adventures that inspired Robinson Crusoe. He camps on islands that famous castaways once survived on, undertakes a perilous sea voyage, and searches Nicaragua and Honduras for the Miskutu Indians, the tribe that the model for Crusoe's companion, Friday, belonged to. Tim Severin has once again demonstrated a superb ability to bring together literature, history and adventure in an engrossing narrative.
Author Notes
Acclaimed adventure writer and explorer Tim Severin was born in 1940 and educated at Tonbridge School and Oxford University. He has made a career of retracing the storied journeys of mythical and historical figures in replica vessels. These experiences have been turned into a body of captivating and illuminating books, including The Brendan Voyage, In Search of Genghis Khan, Crusader, The Jason Voyage, and In Search of Moby Dick. He has received numerous awards for exploration and geographic history, including the Founder's Medal of England's Royal Geographic Society and the Livingstone Medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Scoiety. When not travelling, he lives in County Cork, Ireland
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1711, sailor Alexander Selkirk returned to his London home after being marooned on an island for nearly five years. Originally having asked to be abandoned on the isle, Selkirk piqued popular interest and his life story was eventually hammered into a novel by Daniel Defoe. Examining the fictional Crusoe alongside the historic realities of colonization and human ingenuity, Severin's (In Search of Moby Dick) modus operandi is as simple as it is enjoyable. Readers learn about the history of marooning among plunderers, blockade navies and other piratical sailors, as well as the ethnography of the so-called "Moskito Man" (aka Man Friday) and all the ways to provide for oneself on a deserted island. But the crown jewel in this adventure is the author's travels to remote places while investigating the Where Is It Now? angle. Severin trips to Caledonia, Honduras and several Caribbean islands, looking for the most likely dwelling place of the world-famous shipwrecked sailor. Although he has made a name for himself with such stylized examinations, Severin sometimes, in offhand remarks, sounds disgruntled at being shuttled to the far corners of the world. Nevertheless, the work is energetic and Severin is an ideal guide to the world behind the word. This will surely appeal to the lovers of maritime history. Illus. and maps. (July) Forecast: This is the fourth title within the last year and a half that attempts to trace Selkirk's travels, including Selkirk's Island, by Diana Souhami (Forecasts, Dec. 10, 2001), and Searching for Crusoe, by Thurston Clarke (Forecasts, Jan. 1, 2001). While the subject seems to be a trend, expect competition to result in modest sales. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
The entertaining Severin (The Spice Islands Voyage, 1998, etc.) is off on another fact-finding mission, this time to take the measure of Robinson Crusoe. Though it has been contended that Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish privateer marooned on Juan Fernandez for over four years, was the model for Crusoe in Defoe's classic, Severin is not so sure. Wishing to know more about such figures, not all that uncommon in the buccaneering days, Severin "resolved to visit the scenes of their adventures and see those places in the context of being a maroon or castaway in the early eighteenth century." To that end, he follows in the wake of people like George Shelvocke, who also washed up on Juan Fernandez, and of a Moskito man from the Nicaraguan coast-where fine fishermen lived who sailed with pirates to help provision ships during their long voyages-who was likely the prototype for Man Friday. There is also Captain Nathaniel Uring, who started a Scots colony in Panama after being shipwrecked, and Henry Pitman, a doctor transported for being a part of the rebellion against James II, who set up shop on Salt Tortuga. Severin even finds a contemporary castaway from a fishing boat whose travails are great but whose luck and mettle are typical of those who lived to tell their stories. Severin reads all the material that would have been available to Defoe-picaroons frequently wrote of their exploits and adventures-and travels to the islands where they were waylaid, returning with descriptions of lands often enough still lawless and decidedly elementary in their lifestyles. He concludes that Crusoe is a pastiche, a creation from a number of chronicles, with Pitman being a source for much of Defoe's subject. As he typically does, Severin takes a fanciful story of adventure on the high seas and makes it delightfully real through exacting research and personal observation. (Line drawings)
Booklist Review
Severin has a reputation as a graceful writer. That reputation holds up well in this exploration of the source for Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Memorialized in the name of a Pacific island, Alexander Selkirk is widely held to be the man who inspired the writing of Robinson Crusoe. In her absorbing Selkirk's Island(2001), Diana Souhami argues in favor of this theory. Initially, Severin ostensibly subscribes to conventional wisdom, describing his visit to Isla Robinson Crusoe, but that's slyly laid bait. The hooked reader is soon set to doubting as Severin dips into the travel literature that Defoe mined for his classic, which is set in the Caribbean, not the Pacific. Severin is drawn to three areas mentioned by that literature: the Miskito Coast, Panama, and some sun-roasted islands and cays. Suspecting that one Henry Pitman is the actual model for Crusoe, Severin sets sail to satisfy himself about the veracity of Pitman's adventures as recounted in a 1689 tract. Souhami might not be convinced, but travel lit fans will be seduced by Severin's supple style. Gilbert Taylor.
Table of Contents
| Chapter I Maroon | p. 1 |
| Chapter II Isla Robinson Crusoe | p. 23 |
| Chapter III Moskito Man | p. 99 |
| Chapter IV Painted Man | p. 181 |
| Chapter V Salt Tortuga | p. 239 |
| Chapter VI Crusoe Found | p. 323 |
| A Note on Sources, and Acknowledgments | p. 331 |
