The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (motivational novels TXT) ๐
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Robinson Crusoe is one of the most popular books ever written in the English language, published in innumerable editions and translated into almost every language of the world, not to mention the many versions created in film, television and even radio. First published in 1719, it can also claim to be one of the first novels ever written in English.
Written in the form of an autobiography, it describes the life of the eponymous narrator Robinson Crusoe. A wild youth, he breaks away from his family to go to sea. After many adventures including being captured and made into a slave, he is eventually shipwrecked on a remote island off the coast of South America. Crusoe is the only survivor of the wreck. He is thus forced to find ways to survive on the island without any other assistance. His first years are miserable and hard, but he ultimately manages to domesticate goats and raise crops, making his life tolerable. While suffering from an illness, he undergoes a profound religious conversion, and begins to ascribe his survival to a beneficent Providence.
Crusoe lives alone on the island for more than twenty years until his life changes dramatically after he discovers a human footprint in the sand, indicating the undeniable presence of other human beings. These, it turns out, are the native inhabitants of the mainland, who visit the island only occasionally. To Crusoeโs horror, he discovers that these people practice cannibalism. He rescues one of their prisoners, who becomes his servant (or โmanโ) Friday, named for the day of the week on which he rescued him, and together, their adventures continue.
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- Author: Daniel Defoe
Read book online ยซThe Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (motivational novels TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Daniel Defoe
May 9โ โWent to the wreck, and with the crow made way into the body of the wreck, and felt several casks, and loosened them with the crow, but could not break them up. I felt also a roll of English lead, and could stir it, but it was too heavy to remove.
10โ โโ 14โ โWent every day to the wreck; and got a great many pieces of timber, and boards, or plank, and two or three hundredweight of iron.
May 15โ โI carried two hatchets, to try if I could not cut a piece off the roll of lead by placing the edge of one hatchet and driving it with the other; but as it lay about a foot and a half in the water, I could not make any blow to drive the hatchet.
May 16โ โIt had blown hard in the night, and the wreck appeared more broken by the force of the water; but I stayed so long in the woods, to get pigeons for food, that the tide prevented my going to the wreck that day.
May 17โ โI saw some pieces of the wreck blown on shore, at a great distance, near two miles off me, but resolved to see what they were, and found it was a piece of the head, but too heavy for me to bring away.
May 24โ โEvery day, to this day, I worked on the wreck; and with hard labour I loosened some things so much with the crow, that the first flowing tide several casks floated out, and two of the seamenโs chests; but the wind blowing from the shore, nothing came to land that day but pieces of timber, and a hogshead, which had some Brazil pork in it; but the salt water and the sand had spoiled it. I continued this work every day to the 15th of June, except the time necessary to get food, which I always appointed, during this part of my employment, to be when the tide was up, that I might be ready when it was ebbed out; and by this time I had got timber and plank and ironwork enough to have built a good boat, if I had known how; and also I got, at several times and in several pieces, near one hundredweight of the sheet lead.
June 16โ โGoing down to the seaside, I found a large tortoise or turtle. This was the first I had seen, which, it seems, was only my misfortune, not any defect of the place, or scarcity; for had I happened to be on the other side of the island, I might have had hundreds of them every day, as I found afterwards; but perhaps had paid dear enough for them.
June 17โ โI spent in cooking the turtle. I found in her threescore eggs; and her flesh was to me, at that time, the most savoury and pleasant that ever I tasted in my life, having had no flesh, but of goats and fowls, since I landed in this horrid place.
June 18โ โRained all day, and I stayed within. I thought at this time the rain felt cold, and I was something chilly; which I knew was not usual in that latitude.
June 19โ โVery ill, and shivering, as if the weather had been cold.
June 20โ โNo rest all night; violent pains in my head, and feverish.
June 21โ โVery ill; frighted almost to death with the apprehensions of my sad conditionโ โto be sick, and no help. Prayed to God, for the first time since the storm off Hull, but scarce knew what I said, or why, my thoughts being all confused.
June 22โ โA little better; but under dreadful apprehensions of sickness.
June 23โ โVery bad again; cold and shivering, and then a violent headache.
June 24โ โMuch better.
June 25โ โAn ague very violent; the fit held me seven hours; cold fit and hot, with faint sweats after it.
June 26โ โBetter; and having no victuals to eat, took my gun, but found myself very weak. However, I killed a she-goat, and with much difficulty got it home, and broiled some of it, and ate, I would fain have stewed it, and made some broth, but had no pot.
June 27โ โThe ague again so violent that I lay abed all day, and neither ate nor drank. I was ready to perish for thirst; but so weak, I had not strength to stand up, or to get myself any water to drink. Prayed to God again, but was lightheaded; and when I was not, I was so ignorant that I knew not what to say; only I lay and cried, โLord, look upon me! Lord, pity me! Lord, have mercy upon me!โ I suppose I did nothing else for two or three hours; till, the fit wearing off, I fell asleep, and did not wake till far in the night. When I awoke, I found myself much refreshed, but weak, and exceeding thirsty. However, as I had no water in my habitation, I was forced to lie till morning, and went to sleep again. In this second sleep I had this terrible dream: I thought that I was sitting on the ground, on the outside of my wall, where I sat when the storm blew after the earthquake, and that I saw a man descend from a great black cloud, in a bright flame of fire, and light upon the ground. He was all over as bright as a flame, so that I could but just bear to look towards him; his countenance was most inexpressibly dreadful, impossible for words to describe. When he stepped upon the ground with his feet, I thought the earth trembled, just as it had done before in the earthquake, and all the air looked, to my apprehension, as if it had been filled with flashes of fire. He was no sooner landed upon the earth, but he moved forward towards
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