The Story Of Robinson Crusoe

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When Robinson Crusoe first appeared, many persons believed the story to be true in all its details. A respectable alderman of Oxford, Mr Tawney, was so fascinated with this admirable book, that he used to read it through every year, and thought every part of it as true as the Gospel. Unfortunately for him, a friend of his told him, one day, that it was only a novel, that Robinson Crusoe has never existed. He explained to him that a Scotch sailor, named Alexander Selkirk, had, it is true, been shipwrecked on the island Juan Fernandez but that the story of this shipwreck had been considered considerably embellished by Daniel Defoe. «Your information», said the alderman, «may be very correct, but I wish you had withheld it; for, be undeceiving me, you have deprived me old one of the greatest pleasures of my old age.»