Robinson Crusoe and His Life and Strange Surprising Adventures Hardbound - 1897

First published in 1719, for over three hundred years the story of Robinson Crusoe has captivated audiences around the world. Robinson Crusco 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. By the end of the nineteenth century, no book in the history of Western literature had more editions, spin-offs, and translations than "Robinson Crusoe" with more than 700 alternative versions, including children's versions with pictures and no text. This edition is written "In Words of One Syllable" with Seventy Illustrations. The frontispiece is a color chromolithograph while the other illustrations are in black & white. The illustrations were created by Walter Paget for the 1891 Cassell fine art edition, and have been widely reproduced, used in many other editions, and by many other publishers. Condition: Light tan cloth hardbound boards are in beautiful condition with silver debossing to the title and accents in the illustration of Crusco, with color added for the sun, grass, and the captain's dog. There are some cosmetic blemishes to the front and rear boards but with no wear damage to either the spine or boards edges. The top front corner has a very small tear in the fabric but corners are otherwise only slightly bumped but with no wear. Spine has a slight slant at the top but silver text and decoration is bright and in excellent condition with no wear to back strip or rubbing at the gutters. Hinges are firmly attached to the endpapers with no cracking. Text block is solid, and all pages are firmly attached. Previous owners name on front endpaper in pencil (could be erased if desired). The interior pages are clean with no tears, chips, creases, or other previous owner marks. 184 plus four pages of publisher offerings. Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731 – although his date of birth ranges from 1659 to 1662) was a prolific and versatile writer, producing more than three hundred works – books, pamphlets, and journals – on a range of diverse topics – including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology, and even the supernatural, but he is most famous for his novel "Robinson Crusoe". He was also a merchant, spy, and a pioneer of business and economic journalism and was one of the earliest proponents of the English novel. Walter Stanley Paget (1862 – 1935) was an English illustrator with a vast portfolio of work for many famous British juvenile authors but he may well be most remembered for his Robinson Crusco illustrations that were widely used. He held a gold medal from the Royal Academy of Arts. It is said that when his brother Sidney got the commission to illustrated Sherlock Holmes, he used his brother as the model for Holmes.