English Literature / Unit 11 ENL 1012 short lesson, about 20 seconds
Daniel Defoe and Robinson Crusoe
Captions available
The idea
Daniel Defoe, a Dissenter, merchant, pamphleteer and spy, published Robinson Crusoe in seventeen nineteen: a castaway survives twenty-eight years on an island. It is often credited as the start of realistic fiction and called the first English novel, though those labels are disputed.
In practice
A castaway, realistic detail.
Where people slip
"First novel" is a disputed label.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Builds on
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