"Defoe´s influence on the evolution of the English novel was enormous, and many regard him as the first true novelist. He was a master of plain prose and powerful narrative, with a journalist’s curiosity and love of realistic detail. His peculiar gifts made him one of the greatest reporters of his time, as well as a great imaginative writer who in Robinson Crusoe created one of the most familiar and resonant myths of modern literature.
Daniel Defoe, a prolific author of journal articles and novels, achieved his greatest fame through writing this work. First published in 1719, it lays claim to being the first English novel and was very influential upon later significant writers. Rousseau recommended it as the first book a young boy should read. Coleridge referred to it as an illustration of the universal man. Karl Marx employed it to demonstrate economic theory applied. These notables aside, what reader young or old can forget the thrill of reading about being stranded alone on an island, then Friday appearing and the ensuing adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson Crusoe differs from most of Defoe´s earlier works in that it represents private moral zeal rather than a public plea for reform. Propaganda it may be, but its emphasis is on spiritual rather than on political justice. Robinson Crusoe of York, Mariner gives over only some two – thirds of his narrative to his life on his desert island, but the account of those twenty – eight years forms the most compelling section of his memoirs. He is an ideal choice of narrator given the extraordinary nature of his experiences. Crusoe is of good family and because of his sound education “not bred to any trade”. His decision to go to sea is an act of rebellion.

The author tells how Crusoe built himself a house, domesticated goats, and made himself a boat. He describes the perturbation of his mind caused by a visit of cannibals, his rescue from death of an indigenous inhabitant he later names Friday, and finally the coming of an English ship whose crew are in a state of mutiny, the subduing of the mutineers, and Crusoe´s rescue. Defoe followed it with The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, in which with Friday he revisits his island, is attacked by a fleet of canoes on his departure, and loses Friday in the encounter.
The book is unique fictional blending of the traditions of Puritan spiritual autobiography with an insistent scrutiny of the nature of men and women as social creatures, and it reveals an extraordinary ability to invent a sustaining modern myth."