WILLIAM T. HASTINGS, A.M. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCOTT, FORESMAN AND COMPANY CHICAGO 1913. NEW YORK PREFACE This edition of Robinson Crusoe aims to do two things: to state in the introduction the essential facts relating to Defoe's life, character, and works, with special attention to Robinson Crusoe and Defoe's place in the history of prose fiction; and to supply in footnotes such information as may enable the student to read the story intelligently. The text has been prepared with some care, being reprinted without change (except as noted below) from Dobson's reprint (1883) of the first edition, collated throughout with an original copy of the sixth edition1, and, wherever these two editions differed, compared with original copies of the third and fourth editions. Important differences in the readings of the various editions, and all cases of the insertion in the text of a reading other than that of the first edition, are recorded in a list of variant readings in the appendix. The capitalization, the spelling (except where it clearly indicates a pronunciation different from that in use today), and to a slight extent the punctuation, have been modernized. Obvious printer's errors have been silently corrected. The grammar, sentence division, and paragraphing are unaltered. I gratefully acknowledge the assistance I have received from the suggestions of Professors W. C. Bronson and G. W. Benedict of Brown University, and Mr. Harry W. Hastings of Simmons College. Especially, however, I am indebted to Professor W. P. Trent, of Columbia University, who generously supplied me with his memoranda of the printer's errors in Dobson's reprint. W. T. H. The so-called sixth edition (1722) was the last edition published in Defoe's lifetime which was accessible to me. A seventh edition was published in 1726. 3 |