From Amazon.com
Tim Severin's
In Search of Robinson Crusoe is a fascinating melding of literary and bibliographic scholarship and wide-ranging travelogue that seeks out, and discovers, the flesh-and-blood prototypes for Daniel Defoe's famous castaway and his island home. Severin makes a convincing case that Alexander Selkirk, long assumed to be the model for Crusoe, was little more than Defoe's immediate inspiration. In fact, says Severin, Defoe based the setting and many episodes of his novel on gleanings from other contemporary accounts of maroonings (three, in particular). Severin's research takes him first to Selkirk's island, then to the coasts of Nicaragua and Honduras, where he visits the Miskitu Indians (on whose forebears Defoe likely based Crusoe's Man Friday) as well as to several thoroughly obscure Caribbean desert islets. The most intriguing sections of the book are recountings of the adventures of various abandoned seamen, including Pedro Serrano, a 16th-century mariner who maintained he had lived for seven years on a desolate cay devoid of fresh water. This is an audacious and thrilling book.
--H. O'Billovich
From Publishers Weekly
In 1711, sailor Alexander Selkirk returned to his London home after being marooned on an island for nearly five years. Originally having asked to be abandoned on the isle, Selkirk piqued popular interest and his life story was eventually hammered into a novel by Daniel Defoe. Examining the fictional Crusoe alongside the historic realities of colonization and human ingenuity, Severin's (In Search of Moby Dick) modus operandi is as simple as it is enjoyable. Readers learn about the history of marooning among plunderers, blockade navies and other piratical sailors, as well as the ethnography of the so-called "Moskito Man" (aka Man Friday) and all the ways to provide for oneself on a deserted island. But the crown jewel in this adventure is the author's travels to remote places while investigating the Where Is It Now? angle. Severin trips to Caledonia, Honduras and several Caribbean islands, looking for the most likely dwelling place of the world-famous shipwrecked sailor. Although he has made a name for himself with such stylized examinations, Severin sometimes, in offhand remarks, sounds disgruntled at being shuttled to the far corners of the world. Nevertheless, the work is energetic and Severin is an ideal guide to the world behind the word. This will surely appeal to the lovers of maritime history. Illus. and maps.
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