Daniel Defoe. Ills. J.D. Watson. 
 
Routledge & Sons: ca 1890. Hardcover. Large octavo. Exposing, impressed dings on the corners of the boards, and exposing folds on the foot and crown of the spine. Tears along the gutters of the spine but the textblock is intact. All edges gilt. Smudges and stains on the endpapers (which are torn at the edges) and along the bottom of the pages. 497 pages. Good. 
 
Not just one of the great novels of English literature, the story of the castaway Crusoe and his servant Friday is one of the defining myths of the modern mind. No man is an island, but after Defoe, we know we all secretly believe we should rule one. 
 
“In the course of our lives, the evil which in itself we seek most to shun, and which, when we are fallen into, is the most dreadful to us, is oftentimes the very means or door of our deliverance, by which alone we can be raised again from the affliction we are fallen into.”