170-540: Robinson Crusoe ( / ˈ k r uː s oʊ / KROO -soh ) is an English adventure novel by Daniel Defoe , first published on 25 April 1719. Written with a combination of epistolary , confessional , and didactic forms, the book follows the title character (born Robinson Kreutznaer) after he is cast away and spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near the coasts of Venezuela and Trinidad , encountering cannibals , captives, and mutineers before being rescued. The story has been thought to be based on
340-517: A Gaelic translation for the town's name. The Gaelic Glas could mean grey or green, while chu means dog or hollow. Glaschu probably means "Green Hollow". The "Dear Green Place", like much of Scotland, was a hotbed of unrest against the Union. The local Tron minister urged his congregation "to up and anent for the City of God". The "Dear Green Place" and "City of God" required government troops to put down
510-482: A castaway against his own will, Ballard's protagonists often choose to maroon themselves; hence inverted Crusoeism (e.g., Concrete Island ). The concept provides a reason as to why people would deliberately maroon themselves on a remote island; in Ballard's work, becoming a castaway is as much a healing and empowering process as an entrapping one, enabling people to discover a more meaningful and vital existence. The story
680-423: A "national crime" and forbids Friday from practising it. In classical , neoclassical and Austrian economics , Crusoe is regularly used to illustrate the theory of production and choice in the absence of trade, money, and prices. Crusoe must allocate effort between production and leisure and must choose between alternative production possibilities to meet his needs. The arrival of Friday is then used to illustrate
850-476: A "shortage of animal protein" was also the underlying reason for Aztec cannibalism. The cultural anthropologist Marshall Sahlins , on the other hand, rejected such explanations as overly simplistic, stressing that cannibal customs must be regarded as "complex phenomen[a]" with "myriad attributes" which can only be understood if one considers "symbolism, ritual, and cosmology" in addition to their "practical function". In pre-modern medicine, an explanation given by
1020-404: A Spanish Galleon has run aground on the island during a storm, but his hopes for rescue are dashed when he discovers that the crew abandoned ship. Nevertheless, the abandoned galleon's untouched supplies of food and ammunition, along with the ship's dog, add to Crusoe's reserves. Every night, he dreams of obtaining one or two servants by freeing some prisoners; during the cannibals' next visit to
1190-460: A Spanish port. Before the Spaniards return, an English ship appears; the sailors have staged a mutiny against their captain and intend to leave him and those still loyal to him on the island. Crusoe and the ship's captain strike a deal in which Crusoe helps the captain and the loyal sailors retake the ship. With their ringleader executed by the captain, the mutineers take up Crusoe's offer to remain on
1360-902: A belief that eating a person's flesh or internal organs will endow the cannibal with some of the positive characteristics of the deceased. However, several authors investigating exocannibalism in New Zealand , New Guinea , and the Congo Basin observe that such beliefs were absent in these regions. A further type, different from both exo- and endocannibalism, is autocannibalism (also called autophagy or self-cannibalism ), "the act of eating parts of oneself". It does not ever seem to have been an institutionalized practice, but occasionally occurs as pathological behaviour, or due to other reasons such as curiosity. Also on record are instances of forced autocannibalism committed as acts of aggression, where individuals are forced to eat parts of their own bodies as
1530-697: A boy aged around 5 or 6. As the daily energy need of an adult man is about 2,400 kilocalories, a dead male body could thus have fed a group of 25 men for a bit more than two days, provided they ate nothing but the human flesh alone – longer if it was part of a mixed diet. The nutritional value of the human body is thus not insubstantial, though Cole notes that for prehistoric hunters, large megafauna such as mammoths , rhinoceros , and bisons would have been an even better deal as long as they were available and could be caught, because of their much higher body weight. Cases of people eating human livers and hearts , especially of enemies, have been reported from across
1700-488: A career in law. After a tumultuous journey where his ship is wrecked in a storm, his desire for the sea remains so strong that he sets out to sea again. This journey, too, ends in disaster, as the ship is taken over by Salé pirates (the Salé Rovers ) and Crusoe is enslaved by a Moor . Two years later, he escapes in a boat with a boy named Xury; a captain of a Portuguese ship off the west coast of Africa rescues him. The ship
1870-691: A double bag ... which was put into a large pot" and so boiled alive. While not mentioning live roasting or boiling, European authors also complained about cannibalism and cruelty during the Mongol invasion of Europe , and a drawing in the Chronica Majora (compiled by Matthew Paris ) shows Mongol fighters spit-roasting a human victim. Pedro de Margarit [ es ] , who accompanied Christopher Columbus during his second voyage , afterwards stated "that he saw there with his own eyes several Indians skewered on spits being roasted over burning coals as
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#17328445800752040-481: A draft. Severin also discusses another publicized case of a marooned man named only as Will , of the Miskito people of Central America, who may have led to the depiction of Friday . Secord (1963) analyses the composition of Robinson Crusoe and gives a list of possible sources of the story, rejecting the common theory that the story of Selkirk is Defoe's only source. The book was published on 25 April 1719. Before
2210-408: A final mountain to enter the promised land . The book tells the story of how Robinson becomes closer to God, not through listening to sermons in a church but through spending time alone amongst nature with only a Bible to read. Conversely, cultural critic and literary scholar Michael Gurnow views the novel from a Rousseauian perspective: The central character's movement from a primitive state to
2380-459: A form of torture . Exocannibalism is thus often associated with the consumption of enemies as an act of aggression, a practice also known as war cannibalism . Endocannibalism is often associated with the consumption of deceased relatives in funerary rites driven by affection – a practice known as funerary or mortuary cannibalism . Medicinal cannibalism (also called medical cannibalism ) means "the ingestion of human tissue ... as
2550-524: A friendly castaway who was marooned for many years, has a wild appearance, dresses entirely in goat skin, and constantly talks about providence. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau 's treatise on education, Emile, or on Education , the one book the protagonist is allowed to read before the age of twelve is Robinson Crusoe . Rousseau wants Emile to identify himself as Crusoe so he can rely upon himself for all of his needs. In Rousseau's view, Emile needs to imitate Crusoe's experience, allowing necessity to determine what
2720-514: A group of cannibals in West Africa in the 14th century, the Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta recorded that, according to their preferences, "the tastiest part of women's flesh is the palms and the breast." Centuries later, the anthropologist Percy Amaury Talbot [ fr ] wrote that, in southern Nigeria , "the parts in greatest favour are the palms of the hands, the fingers and toes, and, of
2890-456: A house of prayer the Devil always builds a chapel there; And 't will be found, upon examination, the latter has the largest congregation." – Defoe's The True-Born Englishman , 1701 After his three days in the pillory, Defoe went into Newgate Prison . Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer , brokered his release in exchange for Defoe's cooperation as an intelligence agent for
3060-443: A life of trials but ultimately an ending in reward. Although Moll struggles with the morality of some of her actions and decisions, religion seems to be far from her concerns throughout most of her story. However, like Robinson Crusoe, she finally repents. Moll Flanders is an important work in the development of the novel, as it challenged the common perception of femininity and gender roles in 18th-century British society. Although it
3230-521: A literary genre. Its success led to many imitators; and castaway novels, written by Ambrose Evans, Penelope Aubin , and others, became quite popular in Europe in the 18th and early 19th centuries. Most of these have fallen into obscurity, but some became established, including The Swiss Family Robinson , which borrowed Crusoe's first name for its title. Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels , published seven years after Robinson Crusoe , may be read as
3400-471: A major part of the grieving process. It has also been explained as a way of guiding the souls of the dead into the bodies of living descendants. In contrast, exocannibalism is the consumption of a person from outside the community. It is frequently "an act of aggression, often in the context of warfare", where the flesh of killed or captured enemies may be eaten to celebrate one's victory over them. Some scholars explain both types of cannibalism as due to
3570-533: A member of the enemy faction, which was enough to get her killed by an angry mob. After the others had left, he "cut open the girl's chest ..., dug out her heart, and took it home to enjoy". In a further case that took place in Wuxuan County , likewise in the Guangxi region, three brothers were beaten to death as supposed enemies; afterwards their livers were cut out, baked, and consumed "as medicine". According to
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#17328445800753740-414: A more civilized one is interpreted as Crusoe's denial of humanity's state of nature . Robinson Crusoe is filled with religious aspects. Defoe was a Puritan moralist and normally worked in the guide tradition, writing books on how to be a good Puritan Christian, such as The New Family Instructor (1727) and Religious Courtship (1722). While Robinson Crusoe is far more than a guide, it shares many of
3910-667: A more genuine conversion experience. In the opening pages of The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe , the author describes how Crusoe settled in Bedfordshire , married and produced a family, and that when his wife died, he went off on these further adventures. Bedford is also the place where the brother of "H. F." in A Journal of the Plague Year retired to avoid the danger of the plague, so that by implication, if these works were not fiction, Defoe's family met Crusoe in Bedford, from whence
4080-438: A narrow sense), but also " lungs , liver , brain , heart , nervous tissue , bone marrow , genitalia and skin ", as well as kidneys . For a typical adult man, the combined nutritional value of all these edible parts is about 126,000 kilocalories (kcal). The nutritional value of women and younger individuals is lower because of their lower body weight – for example, around 86% of a male adult for an adult woman and 30% for
4250-599: A number of books decrying the breakdown of the social order, such as The Great Law of Subordination Considered (1724) and Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business (1725) and works on the supernatural, like The Political History of the Devil (1726), A System of Magick (1727) and An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions (1727). His works on foreign travel and trade include A General History of Discoveries and Improvements (1727) and Atlas Maritimus and Commercialis (1728). Perhaps his most significant work, apart from
4420-554: A pioneer of business journalism and economic journalism. Daniel Foe was probably born in Fore Street in the parish of St Giles Cripplegate , London. Defoe later added the aristocratic-sounding "De" to his name, and on occasion made the false claim of descent from a family named De Beau Faux. "De" is also a common prefix in Flemish surnames. His birthdate and birthplace are uncertain, and sources offer dates from 1659 to 1662, with
4590-506: A problematic notion of becoming a "gentleman." Also in 1722, Defoe wrote Moll Flanders , another first-person picaresque novel of the fall and eventual redemption, both material and spiritual, of a lone woman in 17th-century England. The titular heroine appears as a whore, bigamist and thief, lives in The Mint , commits adultery and incest, and yet manages to retain the reader's sympathy. Her savvy manipulation of both men and wealth earns her
4760-469: A renewed plan to sail to the mainland. After more cannibals arrive to partake in a feast, Crusoe and Friday kill most of them and save two prisoners. One is Friday's father and the other is a Spaniard, who informs Crusoe about the other Spaniards shipwrecked on the mainland. A plan is devised wherein the Spaniard would return to the mainland with Friday's father and bring back the others, build a ship, and sail to
4930-473: A secret agent, and to secure acquiescence by using "underhand methods to predispose Scots' opinion in favour of" the Treaty of Union . He was conscious of the risk to himself. Thanks to books such as The Letters of Daniel Defoe (edited by G. H. Healey, Oxford 1955), far more is known about his activities than is usual with such agents. His first reports included vivid descriptions of violent demonstrations against
5100-557: A sense, Crusoe attempts to replicate his society on the island. This is achieved through the use of European technology, agriculture and even a rudimentary political hierarchy. Several times in the novel Crusoe refers to himself as the "king" of the island, while the captain describes him as the "governor" to the mutineers. At the very end of the novel the island is referred to as a "colony". The idealized master-servant relationship Defoe depicts between Crusoe and Friday can also be seen in terms of cultural assimilation , with Crusoe representing
5270-479: A single cooking pot." Al-Latif notes that, while initially people were shocked by such acts, they "eventually ... grew accustomed, and some conceived such a taste for these detestable meats that they made them their ordinary provender ... The horror people had felt at first vanished entirely". After the end of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), a Chinese writer criticized in his recollections of
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5440-527: A single person such as Selkirk, because the story is "a complex compound of all the other buccaneer survival stories." However, Robinson Crusoe is far from a copy of Rogers' account: Becky Little argues three events that distinguish the two stories: "The economic and dynamic thrust of the book is completely alien to what the buccaneers are doing," Lambert says. "The buccaneers just want to capture some loot and come home and drink it all, and Crusoe isn't doing that at all. He's an economic imperialist: He's creating
5610-480: A small parrot. He reads the Bible and becomes religious, thanking God for his fate in which nothing is missing but human society. He also builds two boats: a large dugout canoe that he intends to use to sail to the mainland, but ends up being too large and too far from water to launch, and a smaller boat that he uses to explore the coast of the island. More years pass and Crusoe discovers cannibals , who occasionally visit
5780-458: A supposed medicine or tonic". In contrast to other forms of cannibalism, which Europeans generally frowned upon, the "medicinal ingestion" of various "human body parts was widely practiced throughout Europe from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries", with early records of the practice going back to the first century CE. It was also frequently practised in China . Sacrificial cannibalism refers
5950-408: A systematic rebuttal of Defoe's optimistic account of human capability. In The Unthinkable Swift: The Spontaneous Philosophy of a Church of England Man , Warren Montag argues that Swift was concerned about refuting the notion that the individual precedes society, as Defoe's novel seems to suggest. In Treasure Island , author Robert Louis Stevenson parodies Crusoe with the character of Ben Gunn ,
6120-434: A tradesman's daughter by a nobleman was also common. Overall, Defoe demonstrated a high respect for tradesmen , being one himself. Not only did Defoe elevate individual British tradesmen to the level of gentleman , but he praised the entirety of British trade as a superior system to other systems of trade. Trade, Defoe argues, is a much better catalyst for social and economic change than war. Defoe also argued that through
6290-549: A treat for the gluttonous." Jean de Léry , who lived for several months among the Tupinambá in Brazil, writes that several of his companions reported "that they had seen not only a number of men and women cut in pieces and grilled on the boucans , but also little unweaned children roasted whole" after a successful attack on an enemy village. According to German ethnologist Leo Frobenius , children captured by Songye slave raiders in
6460-465: A valuable contemporary source for their own works. Defoe took pains to give his history an air of objectivity by giving some space to arguments against the Union, but always kept the last word for himself. He disposed of the main Union opponent, Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun , by ignoring him. Nor does he account for the deviousness of the Duke of Hamilton , the official leader of the various factions opposed to
6630-678: A variety of circumstances and for various motives. To adequately express this diversity, Shirley Lindenbaum suggests that "it might be better to talk about 'cannibalisms ' " in the plural. One major distinction is whether cannibal acts are accepted by the culture in which they occur – institutionalized cannibalism – or whether they are merely practised under starvation conditions to ensure one's immediate survival – survival cannibalism – or by isolated individuals considered criminal and often pathological by society at large – cannibalism as psychopathology or "aberrant behavior". Institutionalized cannibalism, sometimes also called "learned cannibalism",
6800-568: A village just north of London, where he is believed to have attended the Dissenting church there . He lived on Church Street, Stoke Newington, at what is now nos. 95–103. During this period, the English government persecuted those who chose to worship outside the established Church of England . Defoe entered the world of business as a general merchant, dealing at different times in hosiery, general woollen goods, and wine. His ambitions were great and he
6970-524: A week without interruption until 1713. Defoe was amazed that a man as gifted as Harley left vital state papers lying in the open, and warned that he was almost inviting an unscrupulous clerk to commit treason; his warnings were fully justified by the William Gregg affair. When Harley was ousted from the ministry in 1708, Defoe continued writing the Review to support Godolphin , then again to support Harley and
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7140-651: A week, written mostly by himself. This was the main mouthpiece of the English Government promoting the Act of Union 1707 . Defoe began his campaign in The Review and other pamphlets aimed at English opinion, claiming that it would end the threat from the north, gaining for the Treasury an "inexhaustible treasury of men", a valuable new market increasing the power of England. By September 1706, Harley ordered Defoe to Edinburgh as
7310-421: A woman named Susan Barton. Other stories that share similar themes to Robinson Crusoe include William Golding 's Lord Of The Flies (1954), J. G. Ballard 's Concrete Island (1974), and Andy Weir 's The Martian (2011). The term "inverted Crusoeism" was coined by J. G. Ballard . The paradigm of Robinson Crusoe has been a recurring topic in Ballard's work. Whereas the original Robinson Crusoe became
7480-557: A woman, the breast." Regarding the north of the country, his colleague Charles Kingsley Meek added: "Among all the cannibal tribes the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet were considered the tit-bits of the body." Among the Apambia, a cannibalistic clan of the Azande people in Central Africa, palms and soles were considered the best parts of the human body, while their favourite dish
7650-420: A world of trade and profit." Other possible sources for the narrative include Ibn Tufail 's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan , and Spanish sixteenth-century sailor Pedro Serrano . Ibn Tufail's Hayy ibn Yaqdhan is a twelfth-century philosophical novel also set on a desert island , and translated from Arabic into Latin and English a number of times in the half-century preceding Defoe's novel. Pedro Luis Serrano
7820-488: A young cannibal who had just participated in a "human barbecue" and told him without hesitation: "It tastes just like chicken. Especially the liver – just the same as chicken." In 2013, during the Syrian civil war , Syrian rebel Abu Sakkar was filmed eating parts of the lung or liver of a government soldier while declaring that "We will eat your hearts and your livers you soldiers of Bashar the dog". Various accounts from around
7990-508: Is en route to Brazil . Crusoe sells Xury to the captain. With the captain's help, Crusoe procures a plantation in Brazil. Years later, Crusoe joins an expedition to purchase slaves from Africa but the ship gets blown off course in a storm about forty miles out to sea and runs aground on the sandbar of an island off the Venezuelan coast (which he calls the Island of Despair ) near the mouth of
8160-518: Is "eaten without ceremony (other than culinary), in the same manner as the flesh of any other animal". While the term has been criticized as being too vague to clearly identify a specific type of cannibalism, various records indicate that nutritional or culinary concerns could indeed play a role in such acts even outside of periods of starvation. Referring to the Congo Basin, where many of the eaten were butchered slaves rather than enemies killed in war,
8330-569: Is a debate among anthropologists on how important functionalist reasons are for the understanding of institutionalized cannibalism. Diamond is not alone in suggesting "that the consumption of human flesh was of nutritional benefit for some populations in New Guinea" and the same case has been made for other "tropical peoples ... exploiting a diverse range of animal foods", including human flesh. The materialist anthropologist Marvin Harris argued that
8500-450: Is a quote from Robinson Crusoe , and like Crusoe, the novel's protagonist Adam Pollo suffers long periods of loneliness. "Crusoe in England", a 183 line poem by Elizabeth Bishop , imagines Crusoe near the end of his life, recalling his time of exile with a mixture of bemusement and regret. J. M. Coetzee 's 1986 novel Foe recounts the tale of Robinson Crusoe from the perspective of
8670-575: Is close to modern explanations. He also pointed out that some acts of Europeans in his own time could be considered as equally barbarous, making his essay " Of Cannibals " ( c. 1580 ) a precursor to later ideas of cultural relativism . Archaeologist James Cole investigated the nutritional value of the human body and found it to be similar to that of animals of similar size. He notes that, according to ethnographic and archaeological records, nearly all edible parts of humans were sometimes eaten – not only skeletal muscle tissue ("flesh" or "meat" in
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#17328445800758840-618: Is far superior. Defoe also implied that trade was the backbone of the British economy : "estate's a pond, but trade's a spring." In the work, Defoe praised the practicality of trade not only within the economy but the social stratification as well. Defoe argued that most of the British gentry was at one time or another inextricably linked with the institution of trade, either through personal experience, marriage or genealogy. Oftentimes younger members of noble families entered into trade, and marriages to
9010-515: Is otherwise clearly rejected. The survivors of the shipwrecks of the Essex and Méduse in the 19th century are said to have engaged in cannibalism, as did the members of Franklin's lost expedition and the Donner Party . Such cases often involve only necro-cannibalism (eating the corpse of someone already dead) as opposed to homicidal cannibalism (killing someone for food). In modern English law,
9180-477: Is probably also the ultimate reason why cannibalism was widespread in traditional New Guinea highland societies", and both in New Zealand and Fiji , cannibals explained their acts as due to a lack of animal meat. In Liberia , a former cannibal argued that it would have been wasteful to let the flesh of killed enemies spoil, and eaters of human flesh in New Guinea and the neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago expressed
9350-537: Is relating her story. In Defoe's writings, especially in his fiction, are traits that can be seen across his works. Defoe was well known for his didacticism , with most of his works aiming to convey a message of some kind to the readers (typically a moral one, stemming from his religious background). Connected to Defoe's didacticism is his use of the genre of spiritual autobiography , particularly in Robinson Crusoe . Another common feature of Defoe's fictional works
9520-425: Is that he claimed they were true stories of their subjects. Defoe is known to have used at least 198 pen names . It was a very common practice in eighteenth-century novel publishing to initially publish works under a pen name , with most other authors at the time publishing their works anonymously. As a result of the anonymous ways in which most of his works were published, it has been a challenge for scholars over
9690-428: Is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings. A person who practices cannibalism is called a cannibal . The meaning of " cannibalism " has been extended into zoology to describe animals consuming parts of individuals of the same species as food. Anatomically modern humans , Neanderthals , and Homo antecessor are known to have practised cannibalism to some extent in
9860-524: Is the consumption of human body parts as "an institutionalized practice" generally accepted in the culture where it occurs. By contrast, survival cannibalism means "the consumption of others under conditions of starvation such as shipwreck, military siege, and famine, in which persons normally averse to the idea are driven [to it] by the will to live". Also known as famine cannibalism , such forms of cannibalism resorted to only in situations of extreme necessity have occurred in many cultures where cannibalism
10030-645: Is thought to be Scottish sailor Alexander Selkirk , who spent four years on the uninhabited island of Más a Tierra (renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966) in the Juan Fernández Islands off the Chilean coast. Selkirk was rescued in 1709 by Woodes Rogers during an English expedition that led to the publication of Selkirk's adventures in both A Voyage to the South Sea, and Round the World and A Cruising Voyage Around
10200-523: Is to be learned and accomplished. This is one of the main themes of Rousseau's educational model. In The Tale of Little Pig Robinson , Beatrix Potter directs the reader to Robinson Crusoe for a detailed description of the island (the land of the Bong tree) to which her eponymous hero moves. In Wilkie Collins ' most popular novel, The Moonstone , one of the chief characters and narrators, Gabriel Betteredge, has faith in all that Robinson Crusoe says and uses
10370-460: Is undersigned by the initials "H. F.", suggesting the author's uncle Henry Foe as its primary source. It is a historical account of the events based on extensive research and written as if by an eyewitness, even though Defoe was only about five years old when it occurred. Colonel Jack (1722) follows an orphaned boy from a life of poverty and crime to prosperity in the colonies, military and marital imbroglios, and religious conversion, driven by
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#173284458007510540-567: The Acts of Union 1707 , dating as far back as 6 December 1604, when King James I was presented with a proposal for unification. This so-called "first draft" for unification took place just a little over 100 years before the signing of the 1707 accord. Defoe made no attempt to explain why the same Parliament of Scotland which was so vehemently in favour of remaining independent from 1703 to 1705 became so supine in 1706. He received very little reward from his paymasters and no recognition for his services by
10710-520: The DSM , presumably because at least serious cases (that lead to murder) are very rare. Within institutionalized cannibalism, exocannibalism is often distinguished from endocannibalism . Endocannibalism refers to the consumption of a person from the same community. Often it is a part of a funerary ceremony, similar to burial or cremation in other cultures. The consumption of the recently deceased in such rites can be considered "an act of affection" and
10880-580: The Cambridge History of English Literature , the section on Defoe by author William P. Trent attributes 370 works to Defoe. J.R. Moore generated the largest list of Defoe's work, with approximately five hundred and fifty works that he attributed to Defoe. Defoe died on 24 April 1731, in Ropemakers Alley, not far from where he was born in Cripplegate, probably while in hiding from his creditors. He
11050-434: The Congo Basin . A form of cannibalism popular in early modern Europe was the consumption of body parts or blood for medical purposes . Reaching its height during the 17th century, this practice continued in some cases into the second half of the 19th century. Cannibalism has occasionally been practised as a last resort by people suffering from famine . Well-known examples include the ill-fated Donner Party (1846–1847),
11220-529: The Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), hundreds of incidents of cannibalism occurred, mostly motivated by hatred against supposed "class enemies", but sometimes also by health concerns. In a case recorded by the local authorities, a school teacher in Mengshan County "heard that consuming a 'beauty's heart' could cure disease". He then chose a 13- or 14-year-old student of his and publicly denounced her as
11390-605: The Democratic Republic of the Congo . It was still practised in Papua New Guinea as of 2012, for cultural reasons. Cannibalism has been said to test the bounds of cultural relativism because it challenges anthropologists "to define what is or is not beyond the pale of acceptable human behavior ". A few scholars argue that no firm evidence exists that cannibalism has ever been a socially acceptable practice anywhere in
11560-563: The Holodomor (1932–1933), and the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 (1972), after which the survivors ate the bodies of the dead. Additionally, there are cases of people engaging in cannibalism for sexual pleasure, such as Albert Fish , Issei Sagawa , Jeffrey Dahmer , and Armin Meiwes . Cannibalism has been both practised and fiercely condemned in several recent wars, especially in Liberia and
11730-634: The Legion's Memorial to Robert Harley , then Speaker of the House of Commons —and his subsequent employer—while flanked by a guard of sixteen gentlemen of quality. It demanded the release of the Kentish petitioners, who had asked Parliament to support the king in an imminent war against France. The death of William III in 1702 once again created a political upheaval, as the king was replaced by Queen Anne who immediately began her offensive against Nonconformists . Defoe
11900-493: The Orinoco River on 30 September 1659. The crew lowers the jolly boat, but it gets swamped by a tidal wave, drowning the crew, but leaving Crusoe the sole human survivor. He observes the latitude as 9 degrees and 22 minutes north. He sees penguins and seals on this island. Aside from Crusoe, the captain's dog and two cats survive the shipwreck. Overcoming his despair, he fetches arms, tools and other supplies from
12070-561: The Pleistocene . Cannibalism was occasionally practised in Egypt during ancient and Roman times , as well as later during severe famines. The Island Caribs of the Lesser Antilles , whose name is the origin of the word cannibal , acquired a long-standing reputation as eaters of human flesh, reconfirmed when their legends were recorded in the 17th century. Some controversy exists over
12240-638: The Solomon Islands in the 1980s, anthropologist Michael Krieger met a former cannibal who told him that women's breasts had been considered the best part of the human body because they were so fatty, with fat being a rare and sought delicacy. They were also considered among the best parts in New Guinea and the Bismarck Archipelago . Based on theoretical considerations, the structuralist anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss suggested that human flesh
12410-620: The Southern New Guinea lowland rain forests , hunting people "was an opportunistic extension of seasonal foraging or pillaging strategies", with human bodies just as welcome as those of animals as sources of protein, according to the anthropologist Bruce M. Knauft. As populations living near coasts and rivers were usually better nourished and hence often physically larger and stronger than those living inland, they "raided inland 'bush' peoples with impunity and often with little fear of retaliation". Cases of human predation are also on record for
12580-603: The Tories in the Tory ministry of 1710–1714. The Tories fell from power with the death of Queen Anne , but Defoe continued doing intelligence work for the Whig government, writing "Tory" pamphlets that undermined the Tory point of view. Not all of Defoe's pamphlet writing was political. One pamphlet was originally published anonymously, entitled A True Relation of the Apparition of One Mrs. Veal
12750-508: The "enlightened" European while Friday is the "savage" who can only be redeemed from his cultural manners through assimilation into Crusoe's culture. Nonetheless, Defoe used Friday to criticize the Spanish colonization of the Americas . According to J.P. Hunter, Robinson is not a hero but an everyman . He begins as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand, and ends as a pilgrim , crossing
12920-478: The 13th century and their subsequent rule over China during the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), some Mongol fighters practised cannibalism and both European and Chinese observers record a preference for women's breasts, which were considered "delicacies" and, if there were many corpses, sometimes the only part of a female body that was eaten (of men, only the thighs were said to be eaten in such circumstances). After meeting
13090-512: The Angelick World . "He is the true prototype of the British colonist. ... The whole Anglo-Saxon spirit in Crusoe: the manly independence, the unconscious cruelty, the persistence, the slow yet efficient intelligence, the sexual apathy, the calculating taciturnity." Irish novelist James Joyce The novel has been subject to numerous analyses and interpretations since its publication. In
13260-448: The Arab physician Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi repeatedly saw "little children, roasted or boiled", offered for sale in baskets on street corners during a heavy famine that started in 1200 CE. Older children and possibly adults were sometimes prepared in the same way. Once he saw "a child nearing the age of puberty, who had been found roasted"; two young people confessed to having killed and cooked
13430-557: The Chinese author Zheng Yi, who researched these events, "the consumption of human liver was mentioned at least fifty or sixty times" in just a small number of archival documents. He talked with a man who had eaten human liver and told him that "barbecued liver is delicious". During a massacre of the Madurese minority in the Indonesian part of Borneo in 1999, reporter Richard Lloyd Parry met
13600-441: The Congo Basin, where cannibalism had been quite widespread and where even in the 1950s travellers were sometimes served a meat dish, learning only afterwards that the meat had been of human origin. The term gastronomic cannibalism has been suggested for cases where human flesh is eaten to "provide a supplement to the regular diet" – thus essentially for its nutritional value – or, in an alternative definition, for cases where it
13770-594: The English doctrine of the Sovereignty of Parliament , for example, telling the Scots that they could have complete confidence in the guarantees in the Treaty. Some of his pamphlets were purported to be written by Scots, misleading even reputable historians into quoting them as evidence of Scottish opinion of the time. The same is true of a massive history of the Union which Defoe published in 1709 and which some historians still treat as
13940-660: The French plenipotentiary who negotiated the Treaty of Utrecht (1713); and A Continuation of the Letters Writ by a Turkish Spy (1718), a satire of European politics and religion, ostensibly written by a Muslim in Paris. From 1719 to 1724, Defoe published the novels for which he is famous (see below). In the final decade of his life, he also wrote conduct manuals, including Religious Courtship (1722), The Complete English Tradesman (1726) and The New Family Instructor (1727). He published
14110-529: The German-occupied city of Warsaw for a period of three winter months, from October to January 1945, when they were rescued by the Red Army , were later called Robinson Crusoes of Warsaw ( Robinsonowie warszawscy ). Robinson Crusoe usually referred to his servant as "my man Friday", from which the term " Man Friday " (or "Girl Friday") originated. Robinson Crusoe marked the beginning of realistic fiction as
14280-602: The Guide of Youth inspired Robinson Crusoe because of a number of passages in that work that are closely tied to the novel. A leitmotif of the novel is the Christian notion of providence , penitence, and redemption. Crusoe comes to repent of the follies of his youth. Defoe also foregrounds this theme by arranging highly significant events in the novel to occur on Crusoe's birthday. The denouement culminates not only in Crusoe's deliverance from
14450-524: The Island Ceylon . Severin (2002) unravels a much wider range of potential sources of inspiration, and concludes by identifying castaway surgeon Henry Pitman as the most likely: Severin argues that since Pitman appears to have lived in the lodgings above the father's publishing house and that Defoe himself was a mercer in the area at the time, Defoe may have met Pitman in person and learned of his experiences first-hand, or possibly through submission of
14620-539: The Next Day after her Death to One Mrs. Bargrave at Canterbury The 8th of September, 1705 . It deals with the interaction between the spiritual realm and the physical realm and was most likely written in support of Charles Drelincourt 's The Christian Defence against the Fears of Death (1651). It describes Mrs. Bargrave's encounter with her old friend Mrs. Veal after she had died. It is clear from this piece and other writings that
14790-553: The Tories. In exchange for such cooperation with the rival political side, Harley paid some of Defoe's outstanding debts, improving his financial situation considerably. Within a week of his release from prison, Defoe witnessed the Great Storm of 1703 , which raged through the night of 26/27 November. It caused severe damage to London and Bristol , uprooted millions of trees, and killed more than 8,000 people, mostly at sea. The event became
14960-510: The Union, who seemingly betrayed his former colleagues when he switched to the Unionist/Government side in the decisive final stages of the debate. In 1709, Defoe authored a lengthy book entitled The History of the Union of Great Britain , an Edinburgh publication printed by the Heirs of Anderson . Defoe is cited twice in the book as its author, and gives details of the events leading up to
15130-502: The Union. "A Scots rabble is the worst of its kind", he reported. Defoe reportedly "became fearful of being lynched after a threatening crowd surged up the High Street shouting 'No Union! No English dogs!'" Years later John Clerk of Penicuik , a leading Unionist, wrote in his memoirs that it was not known at the time that Defoe had been sent by Godolphin: … to give a faithful account to him from time to time how everything past here. He
15300-402: The World in 1712. According to Tim Severin , "Daniel Defoe, a secretive man, neither confirmed nor denied that Selkirk was the model for the hero of his book. Apparently written in six months or less, Robinson Crusoe was a publishing phenomenon." According to Andrew Lambert , author of Crusoe's Island , it is a "false premise" to suppose that Defoe's novel was inspired by the experiences of
15470-584: The accuracy of these legends and the prevalence of actual cannibalism in the culture. Cannibalism has been well documented in much of the world, including Fiji (once nicknamed the "Cannibal Isles"), the Amazon Basin , the Congo , and the Māori people of New Zealand. Cannibalism was also practised in New Guinea and in parts of the Solomon Islands , and human flesh was sold at markets in some parts of Melanesia and of
15640-456: The anthropologist Emil Torday notes that "the most common [reason for cannibalism] was simply gastronomic: the natives loved 'the flesh that speaks' [as human flesh was commonly called] and paid for it". The historian Key Ray Chong observes that, throughout Chinese history, "learned cannibalism was often practiced ... for culinary appreciation". In his popular book Guns, Germs and Steel , Jared Diamond suggests that "protein starvation
15810-423: The attributions of Defoe's novels came long after his death. Notably, Moll Flanders and Roxana were published anonymously for over fifty years until Francis Noble named Daniel Defoe on their title pages in edition publication in 1775 and 1774. Biographer P. N. Furbank and W. R. Owens built upon this canon, also relying on what they believed could be Defoe's work, without a means to be absolutely certain. In
15980-469: The benefits of individualism to a not entirely convinced religious community. J. Paul Hunter has written extensively on the subject of Robinson Crusoe as apparent spiritual autobiography, tracing the influence of Defoe's Puritan ideology through Crusoe's narrative, and his acknowledgement of human imperfection in pursuit of meaningful spiritual engagements – the cycle of "repentance [and] deliverance". This spiritual pattern and its episodic nature, as well as
16150-421: The book for a sort of divination . He considers The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe the finest book ever written, reads it over and over again, and considers a man but poorly read if he had happened not to read the book. French novelist Michel Tournier published Friday, or, The Other Island (French Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique ) in 1967. His novel explores themes including civilization versus nature,
16320-452: The cases, with roasting being slightly more common. In contrast to Lévi-Strauss's predictions, boiling was more often used in exocannibalism, while roasting was about equally common for both. Shankman observed that various other "ways of preparing people" were repeatedly employed as well; in one third of all cases, two or more modes were used together (e.g. some bodies or body parts were boiled or baked, while others were roasted). Human flesh
16490-611: The child. Another time, remains were found of a person who had apparently been roasted and served whole, the legs tied like those of "a sheep trussed for cooking". Only the skeleton was found, still undivided and in the trussed position, but "with all the flesh stripped off for food". In some cases children were roasted and offered for sale by their own parents; other victims were street children, who had become very numerous and were often kidnapped and cooked by people looking for food or extra income. The victims were so numerous that sometimes "two or three children, even more, would be found in
16660-895: The consumption of the flesh of victims of human sacrifice , for example among the Aztecs . Human and animal remains excavated in Knossos , Crete , have been interpreted as evidence of a ritual in which children and sheep were sacrificed and eaten together during the Bronze Age . According to Ancient Roman reports, the Celts in Britain practised sacrificial cannibalism, and archaeological evidence backing these claims has by now been found. Infanticidal cannibalism or cannibalistic infanticide refers to cases where newborns or infants are killed because they are "considered unwanted or unfit to live" and then "consumed by
16830-521: The discharge of the punitive fine. According to legend, the publication of his poem Hymn to the Pillory caused his audience at the pillory to throw flowers instead of the customary harmful and noxious objects and to drink to his health. The truth of this story is questioned by most scholars, although John Robert Moore later said that "no man in England but Defoe ever stood in the pillory and later rose to eminence among his fellow men". "Wherever God erects
17000-429: The end of the year, this first volume had run through four editions. By the end of the nineteenth century, no book in the history of Western literature had more editions, spin-offs, and translations (even into languages such as Inuktitut , Coptic , and Maltese ) than Robinson Crusoe , with more than 700 such alternative versions, including children's versions with pictures and no text. The term " Robinsonade "
17170-751: The endless anguish and suffering, the product of absolute abandonment to his fate, now held in the General Archive of the Indies , in Seville . It is quite possible that Defoe heard his story in one of his visits to Spain before becoming a writer. Yet another source for Defoe's novel may have been the Robert Knox account of his abduction by the King of Ceylon Rajasinha II of Kandy in 1659 in An Historical Relation of
17340-460: The expansion of the British Empire and British mercantile influence, Britain would be able to "increase commerce at home" through job creations and increased consumption . He wrote in the work that increased consumption, by laws of supply and demand, increases production and in turn raises wages for the poor therefore lifting part of British society further out of poverty. Published when Defoe
17510-416: The face of total debts that may have amounted to £17,000, was forced to declare bankruptcy. He died with little wealth and evidently embroiled in lawsuits with the royal treasury. Following his release from debtors' prison , he probably travelled in Europe and Scotland, and it may have been at this time that he traded wine to Cadiz , Porto and Lisbon . By 1695, he was back in England, now formally using
17680-611: The genre of desert island cartoons , which began appearing in the publication in the 1930s, to the popularity of Robinson Crusoe. A pantomime version of Robinson Crusoe was staged at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1796, with Joseph Grimaldi as Pierrot in the harlequinade . The piece was produced again in 1798, this time starring Grimaldi as Clown . In 1815, Grimaldi played Friday in another version of Robinson Crusoe . Daniel Defoe Daniel Defoe ( / d ɪ ˈ f oʊ / ; born Daniel Foe ; c. 1660 – 24 April 1731)
17850-576: The geography of Africa and some of its fauna does not use the language or knowledge of a fiction writer and suggests an eyewitness experience. Memoirs of a Cavalier (1720) is set during the Thirty Years' War and the English Civil War . A Journal of the Plague Year , published in 1722, can be read both as novel and as nonfiction. It is an account of the Great Plague of London in 1665, which
18020-452: The government. He made use of his Scottish experience to write his Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain , published in 1726, where he admitted that the increase of trade and population in Scotland which he had predicted as a consequence of the Union was "not the case, but rather the contrary". Defoe's description of Glasgow (Glaschu) as a "Dear Green Place" has often been misquoted as
18190-483: The ill-fated Monmouth Rebellion but gained a pardon, by which he escaped the Bloody Assizes of Judge George Jeffreys . Queen Mary and her husband William III were jointly crowned in 1689, and Defoe became one of William's close allies and a secret agent. Some of the new policies led to conflict with France, thus damaging prosperous trade relationships for Defoe. In 1692, he was arrested for debts of £700 and, in
18360-478: The importance of repentance and illustrates the strength of Defoe's religious convictions. Critic M.E. Novak supports the connection between the religious and economic themes within Robinson Crusoe , citing Defoe's religious ideology as the influence for his portrayal of Crusoe's economic ideals, and his support of the individual. Novak cites Ian Watt 's extensive research which explores the impact that several Romantic Era novels had against economic individualism, and
18530-524: The information in these books was gathered. Defoe went to school in Newington Green with a friend named Caruso. The novel has been assumed to be based in part on the story of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk , who spent four years stranded in the Juan Fernández Islands , but his experience is inconsistent with the details of the narrative. The island Selkirk lived on, Más a Tierra (Closer to Land)
18700-442: The island rather than being returned to England as prisoners to be hanged. Before embarking for England, Crusoe shows the mutineers how he survived on the island and states that the Spaniards will be coming. Crusoe leaves the island on 19 December 1686 and arrives in England on 11 June 1687. He learns that his family believed him dead; as a result, he was left nothing in his father's will. Crusoe departs for Lisbon to reclaim
18870-402: The island to kill and eat prisoners. Alarmed at this, he conserves the ammunition he'd used for hunting (running low at that point) for defence and fortifies his home in case the cannibals discover his presence on the island. He plans to kill them for committing an abomination, but later realizes he has no right to do so, as the cannibals do not knowingly commit a crime. One day, Crusoe finds that
19040-457: The island, but his spiritual deliverance, his acceptance of Christian doctrine, and in his intuition of his own salvation. When confronted with the cannibals, Crusoe wrestles with the problem of cultural relativism . Despite his disgust, he feels unjustified in holding the natives morally responsible for a practice so deeply ingrained in their culture. Nevertheless, he retains his belief in an absolute standard of morality; he regards cannibalism as
19210-472: The island, when a prisoner escapes, Crusoe helps him, naming his new companion " Friday " after the day of the week he appeared. Crusoe teaches Friday the English language and converts him to Christianity. Crusoe soon learns from Friday that the crew from the shipwrecked galleon he'd found had escaped to the mainland and are now living with Friday's tribe. Seeing renewed hope for rescue and with Friday's help, Crusoe builds another, but smaller, dugout canoe for
19380-464: The latter is always considered a crime, even in the most trying circumstances. The case of R v Dudley and Stephens , in which two men were found guilty of murder for killing and eating a cabin boy while adrift at sea in a lifeboat, set the precedent that necessity is no defence to a charge of murder. This decision outlawed and effectively ended the practice of shipwrecked sailors drawing lots in order to determine who would be killed and eaten to prevent
19550-400: The life and surprising adventures of Robinson Crusoe: with his Vision of the angelick world (1720). Jonathan Swift 's Gulliver's Travels (1726) is in part a parody of Defoe's adventure novel. The book proved to be so popular that the names of the two main protagonists, Crusoe and Friday, have entered the language. During World War II , people who decided to stay and hide in the ruins of
19720-400: The life of Alexander Selkirk , a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (now part of Chile ) which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. Pedro Serrano is another real-life castaway whose story might have inspired the novel. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he
19890-512: The life of Hai ebn Yokdhan . Defoe's next novel was Captain Singleton (1720), an adventure story whose first half covers a traversal of Africa which anticipated subsequent discoveries by David Livingstone and whose second half taps into the contemporary fascination with piracy . The novel has been commended for its sensitive depiction of the close relationship between the hero and his religious mentor, Quaker William Walters. Its description of
20060-622: The like". Human flesh was also often "cooked into soup " or stewed in cauldrons. Eating human flesh raw was the "least popular" method, but a few cases are on record too. Chong notes that human flesh was typically cooked in the same way as "ordinary foodstuffs for daily consumption" – no principal distinction from the treatment of animal meat is detectable, and nearly any mode of preparation used for animals could also be used for people. Though human corpses, like those of animals, were usually cut into pieces for further processing, reports of people being roasted or baked whole are on record throughout
20230-539: The marketplace" during the Taiping Rebellion in 1850–1864, human hearts became a popular dish, according to some who afterwards freely admitted having consumed them. According to a missionary's report from the brutal suppression of the Dungan Revolt of 1895–1896 in northwestern China, "thousands of men, women and children were ruthlessly massacred by the imperial soldiers" and "many a meal of human hearts and livers
20400-577: The most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television, and radio, that its name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade . Robinson Crusoe (the family name corrupted from the German name "Kreutznaer") sets sail from Kingston upon Hull , England , on a sea voyage in August ;1651, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted him to pursue
20570-443: The mother, father, both parents or close relatives". Infanticide followed by cannibalism was practised in various regions, but is particularly well documented among Aboriginal Australians . Among animals, such behaviour is called filial cannibalism , and it is common in many species, especially among fish. Human predation is the hunting of people from unrelated and possibly hostile groups in order to eat them. In parts of
20740-456: The name "Defoe" and serving as a "commissioner of the glass duty", responsible for collecting taxes on bottles. In 1696, he ran a tile and brick factory in what is now Tilbury in Essex and lived in the parish of Chadwell St Mary nearby. As many as 545 titles have been attributed to Defoe, including satirical poems, political and religious pamphlets, and volumes. Defoe's first notable publication
20910-519: The neighbouring Bismarck Archipelago and for Australia . In the Congo Basin, there lived groups such as the Bankutu who hunted humans for food even when game was plentiful. The term innocent cannibalism has been used for cases of people eating human flesh without knowing what they are eating. It is a subject of myths, such as the myth of Thyestes who unknowingly ate the flesh of his own sons. There are also actual cases on record, for example from
21080-539: The novels, is A Tour thro' the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–1727), which provided a panoramic survey of British trade on the eve of the Industrial Revolution . Published in 1726, The Complete English Tradesman is an example of Defoe's political works. In the work, Defoe discussed the role of the tradesman in England in comparison to tradesmen internationally, arguing that the British system of trade
21250-450: The now-discredited theory of humorism for cannibalism was that it was caused by a black acrimonious humor, which, being lodged in the linings of the ventricles of the heart, produced a voracity for human flesh. On the other hand, the French philosopher Michel de Montaigne understood war cannibalism as a way of expressing vengeance and hatred towards one's enemies and celebrating one's victory over them, thus giving an interpretation that
21420-576: The origins of forensic podiatry in this episode. It has inspired a new genre, the Robinsonade , as works such as Johann David Wyss ' The Swiss Family Robinson (1812) adapt its premise and has provoked modern postcolonial responses, including J. M. Coetzee 's Foe (1986) and Michel Tournier 's Vendredi ou les Limbes du Pacifique (in English, Friday, or, The Other Island ) (1967). Two sequels followed: Defoe's The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719) and his Serious reflections during
21590-512: The others from starving, a time-honoured practice formerly known as a " custom of the sea ". In other cases, cannibalism is an expression of a psychopathology or mental disorder , condemned by the society in which it occurs and "considered to be an indicator of [a] severe personality disorder or psychosis". Well-known cases include Albert Fish , Issei Sagawa , and Armin Meiwes . Fantasies of cannibalism, whether acted out or not, are not specifically mentioned in manuals of mental disorders such as
21760-404: The period that some Mongol soldiers ate human flesh because of its taste rather than (as had also occurred in other times) merely in cases of necessity. He added that they enjoyed torturing their victims (often children or women, whose flesh was preferred over that of men) by roasting them alive, in "large jars whose outside touched the fire [or] on an iron grate". Other victims were placed "inside
21930-747: The political portion of Defoe's life was by no means his only focus. In despair during his imprisonment for the seditious libel case, Defoe wrote to William Paterson , the London Scot and founder of the Bank of England and part instigator of the Darien scheme , who was in the confidence of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer , leading minister and spymaster in the English government . Harley accepted Defoe's services and released him in 1703. He immediately published The Review , which appeared weekly, then three times
22100-468: The possibility of trade and the gains that result. One day, about noon, going towards my boat, I was exceedingly surprised with the print of a man's naked foot on the shore, which was very plain to be seen on the sand. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe , 1719 The work has been variously read as an allegory for the development of civilization; as a manifesto of economic individualism; and as an expression of European colonial desires. Significantly, it also shows
22270-548: The profits of his estate in Brazil, which has granted him much wealth. In conclusion, he transports his wealth overland to England from Portugal to avoid travelling by sea. Friday accompanies him and, en route , they endure one last adventure together as they fight off famished wolves while crossing the Pyrenees . There were many stories of real-life castaways in Defoe's time. Most famously, Defoe's suspected inspiration for Robinson Crusoe
22440-463: The psychology of solitude, as well as death and sexuality in a retelling of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe story. Tournier's Robinson chooses to remain on the island, rejecting civilization when offered the chance to escape 28 years after being shipwrecked. Likewise, in 1963, J. M. G. Le Clézio , winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Literature , published the novel Le Proces-Verbal . The book's epigraph
22610-577: The publication of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. Defoe comments on the tendency to attribute tracts of uncertain authorship to him in his apologia Appeal to Honour and Justice (1715), a defence of his part in Harley's Tory ministry (1710–1714). Other works that anticipate his novelistic career include The Family Instructor (1715), a conduct manual on religious duty; Minutes of the Negotiations of Monsr. Mesnager (1717), in which he impersonates Nicolas Mesnager ,
22780-465: The re-discovery of earlier female novelists, have kept Robinson Crusoe from being classified as a novel, let alone the first novel written in English – despite the blurbs on some book covers. Early critics, such as Robert Louis Stevenson , admired it, saying that the footprint scene in Crusoe was one of the four greatest in English literature and most unforgettable; more prosaically, Wesley Vernon has seen
22950-400: The repast" at feasts for chiefs and warriors. The ethnologist Felix Speiser [ de ] writes: "Apart from the breasts of women and the genitals of men, palms of hands and soles of feet were the most coveted morsels." He knew a chief on Ambae , one of the islands of Vanuatu, who, "according to fairly reliably sources", dined on a young girl's breasts every few days. When visiting
23120-431: The reversal of those ideals that takes place within Robinson Crusoe . In Tess Lewis's review, "The heroes we deserve", of Ian Watt's article, she furthers Watt's argument with a development on Defoe's intention as an author, "to use individualism to signify nonconformity in religion and the admirable qualities of self-reliance". This further supports the belief that Defoe used aspects of spiritual autobiography to introduce
23290-406: The rioters tearing up copies of the Treaty at almost every mercat cross in Scotland. When Defoe visited in the mid-1720s, he claimed that the hostility towards his party was "because they were English and because of the Union, which they were almost universally exclaimed against". The extent and particulars are widely contested concerning Defoe's writing in the period from the Tory fall in 1714 to
23460-719: The same sentiment. In many cases, human flesh was also described as particularly delicious, especially when it came from women, children, or both. Such statements are on record for various regions and peoples, including the Aztecs, today's Liberia and Nigeria , the Fang people in west-central Africa, the Congo Basin, China up to the 14th century, Sumatra , Borneo , Australia, New Guinea, New Zealand, Vanuatu , and Fiji. Some Europeans and Americans who ate human flesh accidentally, out of curiosity, or to comply with local customs likewise tended to describe it as very good. There
23630-437: The ship before the next storm breaks it apart. He builds a fenced-in habitat near a cave which he excavates. By making marks in a wooden cross, he creates a calendar post to keep track of his time on the island. Over the years, by using tools salvaged from the ship, and some which he makes himself, he hunts animals, grows barley and rice, dries grapes to make raisins, learns to make pottery and traps and raises goats. He also adopts
23800-624: The subject of Defoe's The Storm (1704), which includes a collection of witness accounts of the tempest. Many regard it as one of the world's first examples of modern journalism. In the same year, he set up his periodical A Review of the Affairs of France , which supported the Harley Ministry , chronicling the events of the War of the Spanish Succession (1702–1714). The Review ran three times
23970-612: The summer or early autumn of 1660 considered the most likely. His father, James Foe, was a prosperous tallow chandler of probable Flemish descent, and a member of the Worshipful Company of Butchers . In Defoe's early childhood, he lived through several significant historical events: in 1665, seventy thousand were killed by the Great Plague of London , and the next year, the Great Fire of London left only Defoe's and two other houses standing in his neighbourhood. In 1667, when he
24140-422: The themes and theological and moral points of view. "Crusoe" may have been taken from Timothy Cruso , a classmate of Defoe's who had written guide books, including God the Guide of Youth (1695), before dying at an early age – just eight years before Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe . Cruso would have been remembered by contemporaries and the association with guide books is clear. It has even been speculated that God
24310-472: The world mention women's breasts as a favourite body part. Also frequently mentioned are the palms of the hands and sometimes the soles of the feet , regardless of the victim's gender. Jerome , in his treatise Against Jovinianus , claimed that the British Attacotti were cannibals who regarded the buttocks of men and the breasts of women as delicacies. During the Mongol invasion of Europe in
24480-540: The world, but such views have been largely rejected as irreconcilable with the actual evidence. The word "cannibal" is derived from Spanish caníbal or caríbal , originally used as a name variant for the Kalinago (Island Caribs), a people from the West Indies said to have eaten human flesh. The older term anthropophagy , meaning "eating humans", is also used for human cannibalism. Cannibalism has been practised under
24650-491: The world. After the Battle of Uhud (625), Hind bint Utba ate (or at least attempted to) the liver of Hamza ibn Abd al-Muttalib , an uncle of Muhammad . At that time, the liver was considered "the seat of life". French Catholics ate livers and hearts of Huguenots at the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre in 1572, in some cases also offering them for sale. In China, medical cannibalism
24820-591: The world. At the archaeological site of Herxheim , Germany, more than a thousand people were killed and eaten about 7000 years ago, and the evidence indicates that many of them were spit-roasted whole over open fires. During severe famines in China and Egypt during the 12th and early 13th centuries, there was a black-market trade in corpses of little children that were roasted or boiled whole. In China, human-flesh sellers advertised such corpses as good for being boiled or steamed whole, "including their bones", and praised their particular tenderness. In Cairo , Egypt,
24990-494: The years to properly credit Defoe for all of the works that he wrote in his lifetime. If counting only works that Defoe published under his own name, or his known pen name "the author of the True-Born Englishman," there would be about 75 works that could be attributed to him. Beyond these 75 works, scholars have used a variety of strategies to determine what other works should be attributed to Defoe. Writer George Chalmers
25160-576: Was An Essay Upon Projects , a series of proposals for social and economic improvement, published in 1697. From 1697 to 1698, he defended the right of King William III to a standing army during disarmament, after the Treaty of Ryswick (1697) had ended the Nine Years' War (1688–1697). His most successful poem, The True-Born Englishman (1701), defended William against xenophobic attacks from his political enemies in England, and English anti-immigration sentiments more generally. In 1701, Defoe presented
25330-727: Was baked in steam on preheated rocks or in earth ovens (a technique widely used in the Pacific), smoked (which allowed to preserve it for later consumption), or eaten raw. While these modes were used in both exo- and endocannibalism, another method that was only used in the latter and only in the Americas was to burn the bones or bodies of deceased relatives and then to consume the bone ash. After analysing numerous accounts from China, Key Ray Chong similarly concludes that "a variety of methods for cooking human flesh" were used in this country. Most popular were " broiling , roasting, boiling and steaming", followed by " pickling in salt, wine, sauce and
25500-458: Was a Spanish sailor who was marooned for seven or eight years on a small desert island after shipwrecking in the 1520s on a small island in the Caribbean off the coast of Nicaragua. He had no access to fresh water and lived off the blood and flesh of sea turtles and birds. He was quite a celebrity when he returned to Europe; before passing away, he recorded the hardships suffered in documents that show
25670-710: Was a natural target, and his pamphleteering and political activities resulted in his arrest and placement in a pillory on 31 July 1703, principally on account of his December 1702 pamphlet entitled The Shortest-Way with the Dissenters; Or, Proposals for the Establishment of the Church , purporting to argue for their extermination. In it, he ruthlessly satirised both the high church Tories and those Dissenters who hypocritically practised so-called "occasional conformity", such as his Stoke Newington neighbour Sir Thomas Abney . It
25840-421: Was a real person and that the book was a non-fiction travelogue . Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. Some allege it is a contender for the first English novel . Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of
26010-475: Was able to buy a country estate and a ship (as well as civets to make perfume), though he was rarely out of debt. On 1 January 1684, Defoe married Mary Tuffley at St Botolph's Aldgate . She was the daughter of a London merchant, and brought with her a dowry of £3,700—a huge amount by the standards of the day. Given his debts and political difficulties, the marriage may have been troubled, but it lasted 47 years and produced eight children. In 1685, Defoe joined
26180-433: Was also illustrated and published in comic book form by Classics Illustrated in 1943 and 1957. The much improved 1957 version was inked / penciled by Sam Citron, who is most well known for his contributions to the earlier issues of Superman . British illustrator Reginald Ben Davis drew a female version of the story titled Jill Crusoe, Castaway (1950–1959). Bob Mankoff , cartoon editor of The New Yorker attributes
26350-435: Was an English novelist, journalist, merchant, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe , published in 1719, which is claimed to be second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel , and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson . Defoe wrote many political tracts,
26520-437: Was coined to describe the genre of stories similar to Robinson Crusoe . Defoe went on to write a lesser-known sequel, The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719). It was intended to be the last part of his stories, according to the original title page of the sequel's first edition, but a third book was published (1720), Serious Reflections During the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe: With his Vision of
26690-435: Was in his late fifties, Robinson Crusoe relates the story of a man's shipwreck on a desert island for twenty-eight years and his subsequent adventures. Throughout its episodic narrative, Crusoe's struggles with faith are apparent as he bargains with God in times of life-threatening crises, but time and again he turns his back after his deliverances. He is finally content with his lot in life, separated from society, following
26860-459: Was most typically boiled , with roasting also used to prepare the bodies of enemies and other outsiders in exocannibalism , but rarely in funerary endocannibalism (when eating deceased relatives). But an analysis of 60 sufficiently detailed and credible descriptions of institutionalized cannibalism by anthropologist Paul Shankman failed to confirm this hypothesis. Shankman found that roasting and boiling together accounted for only about half of
27030-407: Was not intended as a work of erotica , later generations came to view it as such. Defoe's final novel, Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724), which narrates the moral and spiritual decline of a high society courtesan, differs from other Defoe works because the main character does not exhibit a conversion experience, even though she claims to be a penitent later in her life, at the time that she
27200-545: Was often in debtors' prison. The cause of his death was labelled as lethargy, but he probably experienced a stroke. He was interred in Bunhill Fields (today Bunhill Fields Burial and Gardens), just outside the medieval boundaries of the City of London, in what is now the Borough of Islington , where a monument was erected to his memory in 1870. A street in the Bronx , New York is named in his honour (De Foe Place). Human cannibalism Note: Varies by jurisdiction Note: Varies by jurisdiction Human cannibalism
27370-399: Was often in trouble with the authorities, and spent a period in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted him. Defoe was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works —books, pamphlets, and journals—on diverse topics, including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural. He was also
27540-428: Was partaken of by soldiers", supposedly out of a belief that this would give them "the courage their enemies had displayed". In World War II, Japanese soldiers ate the livers of killed Americans in the Chichijima incident . Many Japanese soldiers who died during the occupation of Jolo Island in the Philippines had their livers eaten by local Moro fighters, according to Japanese soldier Fujioka Akiyoshi. During
27710-659: Was practised over centuries. People voluntarily cut their own body parts, including parts of their livers, and boiled them to cure ailing relatives. Children were sometimes killed because eating their boiled hearts was considered a good way of extending one's life. Emperor Wuzong of Tang supposedly ordered provincial officials to send him "the hearts and livers of fifteen-year-old boys and girls" when he had become seriously ill, hoping in vain this medicine would cure him. Later private individuals sometimes followed his example, paying soldiers who kidnapped preteen children for their kitchen. When "human flesh and organs were sold openly at
27880-417: Was prepared with "fat from a woman's breast", according to the missionary and ethnographer F. Gero. Similar preferences are on record throughout Melanesia . According to the anthropologists Bernard Deacon and Camilla Wedgwood , women were "specially fattened for eating" in Vanuatu , "the breasts being the great delicacy". A missionary confirmed that "a body of a female usually formed the principal part of
28050-465: Was probably about seven, a Dutch fleet sailed up the Medway via the River Thames and attacked the town of Chatham in the raid on the Medway . His mother, Alice, had died by the time he was about ten. Defoe was educated at the Rev. James Fisher's boarding school in Pixham Lane in Dorking , Surrey. His parents were Presbyterian dissenters , and around the age of 14, he was sent to Charles Morton 's dissenting academy at Newington Green , then
28220-443: Was published anonymously, but the true authorship was quickly discovered and Defoe was arrested. He was charged with seditious libel and found guilty in a trial at the Old Bailey in front of the notoriously sadistic judge Salathiel Lovell . Lovell sentenced him to a punitive fine of 200 marks (£336 then, £71,883 in 2024 ), to public humiliation in a pillory , and to an indeterminate length of imprisonment which would only end upon
28390-409: Was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966. It has also been supposed that Defoe may have also been inspired by a translation of a book by the Andalusian-Arab Muslim polymath Ibn Tufail , who was known as "Abubacer" in Europe. The Latin edition was entitled Philosophus Autodidactus ; Simon Ockley published an English translation in 1708, entitled The improvement of human reason, exhibited in
28560-463: Was the first to begin the work of attributing anonymously published works to Defoe. In History of the Union , he created an expanded list with over a hundred titles that he attributed to Defoe, alongside twenty additional works that he designated as "Books which are supposed to be De Foe's." Chalmers included works in his canon of Defoe that were particularly in line with his style and way of thinking, and ultimately attributed 174 works to Defoe. Many of
28730-424: Was then able to influence the proposals that were put to Parliament and reported, Having had the honour to be always sent for the committee to whom these amendments were referrèd, I have had the good fortune to break their measures in two particulars via the bounty on Corn and proportion of the Excise. For Scotland, he used different arguments, even the opposite of those which he used in England, usually ignoring
28900-461: Was therefor a spy among us, but not known to be such, otherways the Mob of Edin. had pull him to pieces. Defoe was a Presbyterian who had suffered in England for his convictions, and as such he was accepted as an adviser to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and committees of the Parliament of Scotland . He told Harley that he was "privy to all their folly" but "Perfectly unsuspected as with corresponding with anybody in England". He
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