Robinson Crusoe began in Gateshead (From The Northern Echo)

Robinson Crusoe began in Gateshead

4:02pm Monday 15th August 2011 in Features By Gavin Engelbrecht

Crusoe: Daniel Defoe, Robert Knox and the Creation of a Myth by Katherine Frank (The Bodley Head, £20)

WIDELY considered to be the first English novel, Robinson Crusoe was conceived by Daniel Defoe, who is believed to have written his first notes for the book when he lived on the banks of the River Tyne, in Gateshead.

Images of the goatskin-clad castaway from York with the pet parrot that sang Poor Robinson Crusoe, the single footprint in the sand that filled him with terror and wild cannibals are just some of the images that remain etched in the collective consciousness.

The book would go on to spawn a Robinsonade industry, from Swiss Family Robinson to Coral Island and Treasure Island. Defoe’s runaway success is not a work of pure fiction. For many years it has been believed that Crusoe was modelled on Alexander Selkirk, a Scottish buccaneer who was marooned by his shipmates on an island off the Chile coasts. The author of this new book has unearthed a more intriguing inspiration in the person of Alexander Knox, who was lured onto Ceylon in 1659 – the same year of the storm that shipwrecked Crusoe – and held was captive there for 19 years.

According to author Katherine Frank, castaway accounts were the flavour of the day when Defoe wrote the “strange suprising adventures” of Crusoe and he would have included elements of others.

While giving a compelling argument for the genesis of Crusoe, Frank has given this book an added dimension by examining parallels in Defoe’s own life.