Chap. Page
I.How Robinson first went to sea, and how he
was shipwrecked, 		[1]
II.Robinson works hard at making himself a
home,		[12]
III.The earthquake and hurricane; and how
Robinson built a boat,		[22]
IV.Robinson builds a second boat, in which he
is swept out to sea,		[31]
V.Robinson sees a footprint on the sand, and
finds traces of cannibal feasts,		[38]
VI.Robinson finds a cave; hears guns fired by
a ship in distress,		[48]
VII.Robinson visits the wrecked Spanish ship;
rescues a prisoner from the cannibals,		[59]
VIII.How Robinson trained Friday,[73]
IX.Robinson and Friday build a large boat;
they rescue two prisoners from the
cannibals,		[86]
X. Arrival of an English ship; Robinson sails
for home,		[99]

LIST OF PICTURES

Slowly the raft drifted nearer and nearer the shore, [Frontispiece]
At page
Once Robinson shot a lion that he saw lying asleep, [8]
One day he came on a large turtle, [26]
He saw the mark of a naked foot on the sand, [40]
The harbour where he had kept his boat so long, [64]
The man knelt and kissed the ground, [70]
Robinson ran to the white prisoner and cut his bonds, [94]
What could an English ship be doing here? [102]

CHAPTER I
HOW ROBINSON FIRST WENT TO SEA;
AND HOW HE WAS SHIPWRECKED

Long, long ago, before even your grandfather’s father was born, there lived in the town of York a boy whose name was Robinson Crusoe. Though he never even saw the sea till he was quite a big boy, he had always wanted to be a sailor, and to go away in a ship to visit strange, foreign, far-off lands; and he thought that if he could only do that, he would be quite happy.

But his father wanted him to be a lawyer, and he often talked to Robinson, and told him of the terrible things that might happen to him if he went away, and how people who stopped at home were always the happiest. He told him, too, how Robinson’s brother had gone away, and had been killed in the wars.

So Robinson promised at last that he would give up wanting to be a sailor. But in a few days the longing came back as bad as ever, and he asked his mother to try to coax his father to let him go just one voyage. But his mother was very angry, and his father said, ‘If he goes abroad he will be the most miserable wretch that ever was born. I can give no consent to it.’

Robinson stopped at home for another year, till he was nineteen years old, all the time thinking and thinking of the sea. But one day when he had gone on a visit to Hull, a big town by the sea, to say good-bye to one of his friends who was going to London, he could not resist the chance. Without even sending a message to his father and mother, he went on board his friend’s ship, and sailed away.

But as soon as the wind began to blow and the waves to rise, poor Robinson was very frightened and sea-sick, and he said to himself that if ever he got on shore he would go straight home and never again leave it.

He was very solemn till the wind stopped blowing. His friend and the sailors laughed at him, and called him a fool, and he very soon forgot, when the weather was fine and the sun shining, all he had thought about going back to his father and mother.