Who wrote 'Robinson Crusoe'?

Daniel Defoe wrote “Robinson Crusoe.” The English adventure novel was first published on 25 April 1719 under a much longer title describing the supposed memoir of a shipwrecked mariner from York.

The story follows Crusoe after he is stranded on a remote island near the coast of Venezuela. He spends 28 years there, building shelter, growing food, making tools, and keeping detailed records before rescue. The novel later introduces Friday, a captive Crusoe saves from a group of attackers.

Defoe’s narrative combines adventure with spiritual reflection, economic self-reliance, and colonial attitudes typical of its period. It is often described as an early example of realistic fiction and is sometimes called the first English novel, though literary historians debate both labels.

The book is commonly linked to the real castaway Alexander Selkirk, who survived for four years on a Pacific island. Selkirk may have helped inspire Defoe, but Crusoe’s fictional biography is not a direct retelling of Selkirk’s life. Jonathan Swift, another major eighteenth-century writer, did not create Crusoe.