Dimensions
146 x 224 x 26mm
In 1704 Alexander Selkirk, a mariner, was marooned on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez. He was not rescued until 1708.
Selkirk, a Scottish privateer, sailed the Great South Sea on looting expeditions for gold. In 1703 he joined an expedition, captained by William Dampier, to plunder French and Spanish ships off the coast of South America. When Selkirk's ship began to leak, the hope was to refit it on the remote and uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez, 360 miles off the coast of Chile. But the ship's timbers had been "eaten to a honeycomb" by worms. Selkirk chose to maroon himself rather than continue on a doomed voyage.
Alone on the island he at first thought often of suicide. He dared not sleep for fear of being devoured by wild animals. As months passed, he learned to survive. He killed goats with a cudgel and used their skins as clothes and bedding. He built a hut from the branches of sandalwood trees and made fire by rubbing together sticks of dry wood. In time he found that company was not essential, that he was monarch of this island, afraid of nothing it contained, only of who might arrive to challenge his hegemony.
Four years and four moths later, two ships landed on Juan Fernandez to be greeted by an unrecognisable savage-looking man, incoherent with emotion, who spread his arms and said "Marooned".
Diana Souhami in this beautifully written and unusual book tells the extraordinary story of the real Robinson Crusoe, the man who inspired Daniel Defoe's first novel. Though her narrative follows real events, it is underpinned by implications. Drawing on Selkirk's own testimony, that of his rescuers and fellow crewmen, and petitions from two women who each claimed to be his wife, she reveals the facts behind the fantasy of the fictional Crusoe and with great power and flair evokes the true ordeal of solitary survival.
