Front Cover
Recently I found this this yellowing Classics Illustrated edition of Daniel Defoe’s Robison Crusoe. This edition was one of many such comic books published by this publisher on the classics. I didn’t find a date within the copy. The price of the comic book might give us some sort of clue as to its publishing date?
Front Page
The forty-nine page booklet, albeit an abridged version, portrays the full story with just a few changes to the plot of the story.
"First, we went ten days’ journey to Nankin, a city well worth seeing; they say it has a million of people in it: it is regularly built, and the streets are all straight, and cross one another in direct lines. But when I come to compare the miserable people of these countries with ours, their fabrics, their manner of living, their government, their religion, their wealth, and their glory, as some call it, I must confess that I scarcely think it worth my while to mention them here. We wonder at the grandeur, the riches, the pomp, the ceremonies, the government, the manufactures, the commerce, and conduct of these people; not that there is really any matter for wonder, but because, having a true notion of the barbarity of those countries, the rudeness and the ignorance that prevail there, we do not expect to find any such thing so far off. Otherwise, what are their buildings to the palaces and royal buildings of Europe? What their trade to the universal commerce of England, Holland, France, and Spain? What are their cities to ours, for wealth, strength, gaiety of apparel, rich furniture, and infinite variety? What are their ports, supplied with a few junks and barks, to our navigation, our merchant fleets, our large and powerful navies? Our city of London has more trade than half their mighty empire: one English, Dutch, or French man-of-war of eighty guns would be able to fight almost all the shipping belonging to China: but the greatness of their wealth, their trade, the power of their government, and the strength of their armies, may be a little surprising to us, because, as I have said, considering them as a barbarous nation of pagans, little better than savages, we did not expect such things among them. But all the forces of their empire, though they were to bring two millions of men into the field together, would be able to do nothing but ruin the country and starve themselves; a million of their foot could not stand before one embattled body of our infantry, posted so as not to be surrounded, though they were not to be one to twenty in number; nay, I do not boast if I say that thirty thousand German or English foot, and ten thousand horse, well managed, could defeat all the forces of China. Nor is there a fortified town in China that could hold out one month against the batteries and attacks of an European army. They have firearms, it is true, but they are awkward and uncertain in their going off; and their powder has but little strength. Their armies are badly disciplined, and want skill to attack, or temper to retreat; and therefore, I must confess, it seemed strange to me, when I came home, and heard our people say such fine things of the power, glory, magnificence, and trade of the Chinese; because, as far as I saw, they appeared to be a contemptible herd or crowd of ignorant, sordid slaves, subjected to a government qualified only to rule such a people; and were not its distance inconceivably, great from Muscovy, and that empire in a manner as rude, impotent, and ill governed as they, the Czar of Muscovy might with ease drive them all out of their country, and conquer them in one campaign; and had the Czar (who is now a growing prince) fallen this way, instead of attacking the warlike Swedes, and equally improved himself in the art of war, as they say he has done; and if none of the powers of Europe had envied or interrupted him, he might by this time have been Emperor of China, instead of being beaten by the King of Sweden at Narva, when the latter was not one to six in number.
As their strength and their grandeur, so their navigation, commerce, and husbandry are very imperfect, compared to the same things in Europe; also, in their knowledge, their learning, and in their skill in the sciences, they are either very awkward or defective, though they have globes or spheres, and a smattering of the mathematics, and think they know more than all the world besides. But they know little of the motions of the heavenly bodies; and so grossly and absurdly ignorant are their common people, that when the sun is eclipsed, they think a great dragon has assaulted it, and is going to run away with it; and they fall a clattering with all the drums and kettles in the country, to fright the monster away, just as we do to hive a swarm of bees!"
Chapter XIII, The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe
“On several occasions while travelling in the wetlands around the lake the adventures were pursued by a kind of snake or serpent. It was venomous, very large, deformed and quite ugly. When struck or when hit by some thrown object, it would raise itself up and hiss so loud that it might be heard a great way off. It made the men believe that it was Satan himself. ”
The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, Daniel Defoe
An idea for a perfect game scenario.
“It had taken the adventures three days to pass the lake. Six to seven days march after it, the ground was scattered with elephant tusks in ‘such numbers as is incredible’. Some had lain there for hundreds of years. There were some that so large and heavy that even the strongest man among them could not lift them. As to the number of tusks; there was enough to load a thousand of the biggest ships in the world. The weight of just one tusk there was estimated to weigh three hundredweight, a fabulous treasure in its self.”
The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, Daniel Defoe.
I have found another character to add to my “Host of Characters” list. The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, was an absorbing story and besides Captain Singleton included other interesting characters. One such character was William, the ships surgeon. William was a Quaker who had been dragged off another ship by force by the pirates. (He wasn’t really forced he just acted as though he was.) William had secretly wanted to become a pirate in order to accumulate some wealth. William was to become Captain Singleton trusted advisory and faithful comrade.
Slave, servant, adventurer, pirate, and now captain of a pirate ship Captain Singleton has had many encounters with natives of foreign lands. Some of these encounters were friendly and beneficial, while others like the one I am about to describe were fraught with difficulties.
While visiting an island in the Indian Ocean Captain Singleton and some of his crew encountered the natives. The natives, not taking their visit too kindly fired arrows and threw spears at Captain Singleton and his crew. One of the crew was killed and several were injured. When the crew returned fire with their muskets the Indians retired to a large hollowed out tree that acted like their fortress. The Indians continued their assault on the invaders from the safety of their tree fortress.
Captain Singleton and his crew tried to blast the attackers out with their muskets and then with some ships cannon; to no avail, the tree like a true fortress withstood all of these attacks. Next the ships crew tried to smoke out the inhabitants of the fortress, but they didn’t realize that the tree sat on top of a cave. Not only was the cave used for the combatants to escape these assaults, but the cave was connected to another cave further out. The cave was only discovered after Captain Singleton and his crew applied several barrels of gun-powder to the tree. The powder did the trick and the tree and all that were beneath the tree was destroyed. It was a beastly sight!
The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, Daniel Defoe.
“He that shipped with the devil must sail with the devil.”
The Life, Adventures, and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, Daniel Defoe
I haven’t listed links to these epubs, however I download these titles from either Feed Books or Project Guntenberg.
Stolen Treasure, Howard Pyle
A General History of the Pirates, The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton, From London to Land's End, & A Journal of the Plague Year, Daniel Defoe
The Door in the Wall and Other Stories, H.G. Wells
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
The Phantom Ship, Fredrick Marryat
“I saw the world busy around me: one part laboring for bread, another part squandering in vile excess or empty pleasures, but equally miserable because the end they proposed still fled from them; for the men of pleasure every day surfeited of their vice, and heaped up work for sorrow and repentance; and men of labor spent their strength in daily struggling for bread to maintain the vital strength they labored with: so living in a daily circulation of sorrow, living but to work, and working but to live, as if daily bread were the only end of wearisome life, and a wearisome life the only occasion of daily bread.”
