1815 Robinson Crusoe

Description

Illustrated, Leather Binding

A very unusual and scarce edition of the popular novel of Daniel Defoe. The original label, here pasted to the recto of the front endpaper, states that this is the 'Academic Edition', compiled with the intention of advancing nautical education in the reader.

This 1815 edition is edited by 'The Hydrographer' of the 'Naval Chronicle'; his contributions are extensive footnotes on a wide variety of topics which sometimes barely relate to the text itself, it reading like falling down the editor's own rabbit hole. Such tangents include why a stormy northeast wind is so dangerous for mariners, dogs, the global trade of cocoa and other food items, and more. 

Journalist and man of letters George Somes Layard wrote in 1896 that this edition was "perhaps the most pedantic and impertinent ever produced".

Though no name for this editor is stated, it is likely to be James Stanier Clarke, a cleric, naval author, and librarian to King George IV, who co-founded the 'Naval Chronicle'.

Illustrated with in-text engravings.

Collated, bound without the folding map frontispiece.

'Robinson Crusoe' is a popular travelogue-style novel, seeing Crusoe's struggles as he spends twenty-eight years on a remote tropical desert island.

The novel is thought to be based off the experiences of the Scottish castaway Alexander Selkirk.

Ink inscription to the recto of the front free endpaper, 'Eliza Frances Baque, Her Book, Jan 19 1824'.