Victime d'un naufrage, Robinson Crusoé échoue sur une île déserte.

Seul, privé de tout, il va progressivement organiser sa survie, apprivoiser l'environnement sauvage qui constitue désormais son seul univers et réinventer, à sa manière, la civilisation.

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Robinson Crusoé

Robinson Crusoe, set ashore on an island after a terrible storm at sea, is forced to make do with only a knife, some tobacco, and a pipe. He learns how to build a canoe, make bread, and endure endless solitude. That is, until, twenty-four years later, when he confronts another human being.

Robinson Crusoe

Roxana (1724), Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own 'wicked' life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. A resourceful adventuress, she is also an unforgiving analyst of her own susceptibilities, who tells us of the price she pays for her successes. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past. Unlike Defoe's other penitent anti-heroes, however, she fails to triumph over these weaknesses. The novel's drama lies not only in the heroine's 'vast variety of fortunes', but in her attempts to understand the sometimes bitter lessons of her life as a 'Fortunate Mistress'. Defoe's achievement was to invent, in Roxana, a gripping story-teller as well as a gripping story.

Lady Roxana, ou, l'Heureuse Maîtresse

Robinson En 1632, je naquis a York, d'une bonne famille, mais qui n'etait point de ce pays. Mon pere, originaire de Breme, etabli premierement a Hull, apres avoir acquis de l'aisance et s'etre retire du commerce, etait venu resider a York, ou il s'etait allie, par ma mere, a la famille Robinson, une des meilleures de la province. C'est a cette alliance que je devais mon double nom de Robinson-Kreutznaer; mais, aujourd'hui, par une corruption de mots assez commune en Angleterre, on nous nomme, nous nous nommons et signons Crusoe. C'est ainsi que mes compagnons m'ont toujours appele."

Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (full title: The Fortunate Mistress: Or, A History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, Afterwards Called the Countess de Wintselsheim, in Germany, Being the Person known by the Name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II) is a 1724 novel by Daniel Defoe. The novel examines the possibility of eighteenth-century women owning their own estate despite a patriarchal society, as with Roxana's celebrated claim that "the Marriage Contract is ... nothing but giving up Liberty, Estate, Authority, and everything, to the Man". The novel further draws attention to the incompatibility between sexual freedom and freedom from motherhood: Roxana becomes pregnant many times due to her sexual exploits, and it is one of her children, Susan, who come back to expose her, years later, near the novel's close, helping to precipitate her flight abroad, subsequent loss of wealth, and (ambiguous) repentance.

The character of Roxana can be described as a proto-feminist because she carries out her actions of prostitution for her own ends of freedom but before a feminist ideology was fully formed, (though Defoe also works to undercut the radicalism of her position). The book also explores the clash of values between the Restoration court and the middle-class.

Roxana also discusses the issues of truth and deceit. As the text is a first-person narration and written to simulate a real first-hand account of a woman, first comes the issue of subjectivity, but also the underlying lie as to the veracity of the text. The reader can only trust in Roxana to give us a true account of her story, but as she often lies to other characters in the book, and even to herself, she is not a reliable narrator. Furthermore, the whole construction of her character is made on lies and disguises. Her name, or names, are not mentioned until the end of the novel, so even the most basic aspect of her identity - her name - is a mystery for the majority of the novel. And the name that is most associated to her: Roxana, is based on a lie and on a disguise, namely the Turkish dress. Published anonymously, and not attributed to Defoe till 1775, Roxana was nonetheless a popular hit in the eighteenth century, frequently reprinted in altered versions to suit the taste of the day: thus the 1775 edition, which called itself The New Roxana, had been sentimentalised to meet the tastes of the day.

Roxana : The Fortunate Mistress

Robinson Crusoe is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a travelogue of true incidents.Epistolary, confessional, and didactic in form, the book is presented as an autobiography of the title character (whose birth name is Robinson Kreutznaer), a castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical desert island near Trinidad, encountering cannibals, captives, and mutineers, before ultimately being rescued. 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.Despite its simple narrative style, Robinson Crusoe was well received in the literary world and is often credited as marking the beginning of realistic fiction as a literary genre. It is generally seen as a contender for the first English novel. Before the end of 1719, the book had already run through four editions, and it has gone on to become one of the most widely published books in history, spawning so many imitations, not only in literature but also in film, television and radio, that its name is used to define a genre, the Robinsonade.

" J'ai dirigé mon regard vers le bateau échoué, mais l'écume et le crachin de mer étaient si denses que je pouvais à peine le distinguer. Il était tellement loin ! "Robinson Crusoé rêve de sillonner les mers. Mais un jour, une terrible tempête le fait s'échouer sur une île déserte. Ingénieux et persévérant, il lutte pour survivre et recrée, au coeur de l'île sauvage, une vie civilisée. Alors qu'il se croit condamné à rester seul toute sa vie, Robinson fait la rencontre d'un jeune indigène, Vendredi...

Robinson Crusoe Reader with Audio CD

Le titre original de ce roman est « Heurs et Malheurs de la fameuse Moll Flanders », inspiré par un personnage historique, Moll la coupeuse de bourse. On aurait pu le sous-titrer « La solitude de la voleuse dans les bas-fonds londoniens ». Il nous raconte l'histoire d'une jeune femme née et abandonnée dans la prison de Newgate, qui apprend seule la dure loi de la lutte pour la survie. Elle commence par être une prostituée et une voleuse, se marie cinq fois dans l'espoir d'acquérir une certaine sécurité, notamment économique, est emprisonnée à plusieurs reprises, puis déportée en Virginie... Elle finira finalement sa vie en Irlande où elle devient une femme honnête et riche. Moins connue que « Robinson Crusoé », cette oeuvre est tout aussi passionnante. Certains ont qualifié Daniel Defoe de premier « écrivain féministe », et ils n'ont pas tort, car c'est un beau portrait de femme dans une société qui n'a jamais été tendre avec ces dernières.

Robinson Crusoé

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