Robinson Crusoe

Daniel Defoe · 1660–1731 · England

Why it matters

Often called the first English novel: a castaway's meticulous, first-person account so persuasive many readers took it for fact. Its inventory-keeping realism (and its colonial shadow, in Friday) set arguments still running today.

At a glance

Plain diary-like prose, though eighteenth-century syntax and pacing can feel dense.