Robinson Crusoe Island and Related Topics

Robinson Crusoe

Novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719.

Pictorial map of Crusoe's island, the "Island of Despair", showing incidents from the book

The route taken by Robinson Crusoe over the Pyrenees mountains in chapters 19 & 20 of Defoe's novel, as envisaged by Joseph Ribas

Statue of Robinson Crusoe at Alexander Selkirk's birthplace of Lower Largo by Thomas Stuart Burnett

Plaque in Queen's Gardens, Hull, showing him on his island

Crusoe standing over Friday after he frees him from the cannibals

Robinson Crusoe bookstore on İstiklal Avenue, Istanbul

The story has been thought to be based on the life of Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish castaway who lived for four years on a Pacific island called "Más a Tierra" (now part of Chile) which was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.

Juan Fernández Islands

The Juan Fernández Islands (Archipiélago Juan Fernández) are a sparsely inhabited island group in the South Pacific Ocean reliant on tourism and fishing.

Robinson Crusoe Island, as seen in the late 19th or early 20th century. The ship in Cumberland Bay is the cruiser Esmeralda.

in March 1915, shortly before its scuttling in Cumberland Bay

Map of Robinson Crusoe Island (including Santa Clara Island)

Satellite images of Juan Fernández Islands (Alejandro Selkirk Island, inset left)

Situated 670 km off the coast of Chile, they are composed of three main volcanic islands: Robinson Crusoe, Alejandro Selkirk and Santa Clara.

Clad in goatskins, Selkirk awaits rescue in a sculpture by Thomas Stuart Burnett (1885)

Alexander Selkirk

Map of Robinson Crusoe island (formerly Más a Tierra island), where Selkirk lived as a castaway

Selkirk reading his Bible in one of two huts he built on a mountainside

The rescued Selkirk, seated at right, being taken aboard Duke.

An illustration of Crusoe in goatskin clothing shows the influence of Selkirk

Title page from The Life and Adventures of Alexander Selkirk, the Real Robinson Crusoe (1835), by an unknown author

Plaque for Selkirk in Lower Largo, Scotland, which reads: "In memory of Alexander Selkirk, mariner, the original of Robinson Crusoe who lived on the island of Juan Fernández in complete solitude for four years and four months. He died 1723 [sic], lieutenant of HMS Weymouth, aged 47 years. This statue is erected by David Gillies, net manufacturer, on the site of the cottage in which Selkirk was born."

Alexander Selkirk (1676 – 13 December 1721) was a Scottish privateer and Royal Navy officer who spent four years and four months as a castaway (1704–1709) after being marooned by his captain, initially at his request, on an uninhabited island in the South Pacific Ocean.

Alejandro Selkirk Island

Largest and most westerly island in the Juan Fernández Archipelago of the Valparaíso Region of Chile.

The Masafuera rayadito is endemic to Alejandro Selkirk

The extinct Alejandro Selkirk firecrown, Sephanoides fernandensis leyboldi

It is situated 180 km west of Robinson Crusoe Island in the southeastern Pacific Ocean.

Marooning

Intentional act of abandoning someone in an uninhabited area, such as a desert island, or more generally to be marooned is to be in a place from which one cannot escape.

A famous real-life marooning, initially at Selkirk's request, was leaving the sailor Alexander Selkirk on Juan Fernández Island off the coast of Chile, in the Pacific Ocean.

Daniel Defoe

English writer, trader, journalist, pamphleteer and spy.

Daniel Defoe in the pillory, 1862 line engraving by James Charles Armytage after Eyre Crowe

Title page from Daniel Defoe's: The History of the Union of Great Britain dated 1709 and printed in Edinburgh by the Heirs of Anderson

Glasgow Bridge as Defoe might have seen it in the 18th century

Memorial to "Daniel De-Foe", Bunhill Fields, City Road, Borough of Islington, London

A house where Defoe once lived, near London, England

The island Selkirk lived on, Más a Tierra (Closer to Land) was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in 1966.

Easter Island

Island and special territory of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean, at the southeasternmost point of the Polynesian Triangle in Oceania.

Traditional cultivars of sweet potato (kumara) were staple crops on Polynesian Rapa Nui

A View of the Monuments of Easter Island, Rapanui, c. undefined 1775–1776 by William Hodges.

Rapa Nui people, painted by Louis Choris, 1816

Motu Nui islet, part of the Birdman Cult ceremony

Jacob Roggeveen analyzing a Moai statue, 18th-century engraving.

"Queen Mother" Koreto with her daughters "Queen" Caroline and Harriette in 1877

General Pinochet posing with a young Rapa Nui woman

Manu Piri symbolizes love and union between two people. The slogan of the current administration is "Rapa Nui hai mahatu", translated as "Rapa Nui with love".

Souvenir Moai from Rapa Nui, bought at the Artisan's Market, 2020

Easter Island, Isla Salas y Gómez, South America and the islands in between

Typical landscape on Easter Island; rounded extinct volcanoes covered in low vegetation.

Bird paintings in the cave called "Cave of the Men Eaters"

Two ahu at Hanga Roa. In foreground Ahu Ko Te Riku (with a pukao on its head). In the mid-ground is a side view of an ahu with five moai showing retaining wall, platform, ramp and pavement. The Mataveri end of Hanga Roa is visible in the background with Rano Kau rising above it.

A Hare Moa, a Chicken House, image cut from a laser scan collected by nonprofit CyArk.

Ancestor figure, circa 1830, from LACMA collections

Satellite view of Easter Island 2019. The Poike peninsula is on the right.

Digital recreation of its ancient landscape, with tropical forest and palm trees

Hanga Roa seen from Terevaka, the highest point of the island

Tukuturi, an unusual bearded kneeling moai

All fifteen standing moai at Ahu Tongariki, excavated and restored in the 1990s

Ahu Akivi, one of the few inland ahu, with the only moai facing the ocean

Makemake with two birdmen, carved from red scoria

Fish petroglyph found near Ahu Tongariki

Polynesian dancing with feather costumes is on the tourist itinerary.

Front view of the Catholic Church, Hanga Roa

Interior view of the Catholic Church in Hanga Roa

On 30 July 2007, a constitutional reform gave Easter Island and the Juan Fernández Islands (also known as Robinson Crusoe Island) the status of "special territories" of Chile.

U.S. merchant seamen try to revive a shipwrecked Filipino fisherman rescued in the South China Sea (1983)

Castaway

Person who is cast adrift or ashore.

Castaways may need to survive on a deserted island.

Robinson Crusoe (1719) by Daniel Defoe. Illustration of Crusoe standing over Man Friday after freeing him from the cannibals.

In 1681, a Miskito named Will by his English comrades was sent ashore as part of an English foraging party to Más a Tierra.

Lactoris

Lactoris fernandeziana is a flowering shrub endemic to the cloud forest of Masatierra — Robinson Crusoe Island, of the Juan Fernández Islands archipelago of Chile.

San Juan Bautista, Chile

Main town in the Juan Fernández Islands of Chile.

It is located on Cumberland Bay on the center of the northeast coast of Robinson Crusoe Island.