• Robinson Crusoe

  • By: Daniel Defoe
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (3,856 ratings)

Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
Robinson Crusoe  By  cover art

Robinson Crusoe

By: Daniel Defoe
Narrated by: Simon Vance
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $17.19

Buy for $17.19

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

Widely regarded as the first English novel, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is one of the most popular and influential adventure stories of all time.

This classic tale of shipwreck and survival on an uninhabited island was an instant success when first published in 1719, and it has inspired countless imitations.

In his own words, Robinson Crusoe tells of the terrible storm that drowned all his shipmates and left him marooned on a deserted island. Forced to overcome despair, doubt, and self-pity, he struggles to create a life for himself in the wilderness. From practically nothing, Crusoe painstakingly learns how to make pottery, grow crops, domesticate livestock, and build a house. His many adventures are recounted in vivid detail, including a fierce battle with cannibals and his rescue of Friday, the man who becomes his trusted companion.

Full of enchanting detail and daring heroics, Robinson Crusoe is a celebration of courage, patience, ingenuity, and hard work.

Public Domain (P)2008 Tantor

Featured Article: 40+ Motivational Quotes to Lift and Rev You Up


Doubting yourself? Need a push to keep on climbing? To give you a surge and get you back up and moving forward, we've collected 40+ quotes from folks who know a lot about motivational ebbs and flows: authors. Their works span a variety of genres, from classic literature to career success, and offer a diversity of perspectives. We're sure you'll find at least a few wise and uplifting words that speak directly to you and will soon have your motivation flowing.

What listeners say about Robinson Crusoe

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,488
  • 4 Stars
    883
  • 3 Stars
    341
  • 2 Stars
    98
  • 1 Stars
    46
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,619
  • 4 Stars
    590
  • 3 Stars
    152
  • 2 Stars
    18
  • 1 Stars
    10
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    2,147
  • 4 Stars
    730
  • 3 Stars
    352
  • 2 Stars
    107
  • 1 Stars
    50

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Great story but with moments that made me cringe

Robinson Crusoe is a great story, but it has some cringe-able moments. The big one, the one I didn't remember from high school, was the purpose of Crusoe's voyage when he was shipwrecked on the island: he was the supercargo on a slave ship, intending to buy "slaves for trinkets" on the west coast of Africa, some of them destined for his own slave plantation in Brazil. It would be nice to report that by the end of the book, after his association with Friday, he came to realize the trade was evil, but such is not the case.

The first word he teaches Friday is the name he decided to call him by - the day of the week on which he rescued Friday from cannibals. (He never bothers trying to learn Friday's original name in his own language.) The second word he teaches him is the name by which he wants to be addressed: Master.

This bothered me enough that I spent some time looking up the history of abolitionism in England. Apparently it didn't really take off until another generation or two after the book was written (in 1719). So Defoe doesn't quite get a free pass in my book for this, but at least it can be argued that he was simply not ahead of his time on this issue.

Still, it's a great story, and well worth listening to. Crusoe pieces together a life of reasonable comfort, using flotsam from the wreck that stranded him on the island, and a bit of ingenuity. He keeps track of time by cutting notches in a post. He discovers living seeds among the trash he brought back, and by careful experimenting over several years, he is able to raise a respectable crop of wheat. He comes to a kind of accommodation with the cannibals who periodically visit the island: he realizes that he has no right to kill them just because he abhors their way of life.

But eventually he does kill a few and rescue one of their fellow cannibals, who was about to become a meal himself. This young man he names Friday. As Friday learns English and they begin having more substantial conversations, Crusoe tries to teach him Christianity. (I have to admit that I found Friday's questions and objections more persuasive than Crusoe's answers.) Eventually they are rescued and leave the island.

A major loose end in the plot concerns Friday's father and a small group of Spanish soldiers, whom Friday and Crusoe rescue from yet another band of cannibals. They return to the island they came from, where a larger group of Spaniards resides, to bring them news of Crusoe and the greater safety to be had on his island. But Crusoe returns to England before they get back. (This loose end is tied up neatly in the sequel, the Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.)

There are many excellent audio versions of this story available. The one by John Lee is also recommended. (It uses a different set of chapter breaks than this one: apparently Defoe published the story without breaks, and chapters have been added in different forms by later editors.) Simon Vance's version has a slight edge, in my opinion, because his Crusoe has a Yorkshire twang: Crusoe is, after all, a Yorkshireman. (My "expertise" in this comes from many years of watching Sean Bean and listening to Richard Sharpe audiobooks.) Vance, as always, gives a well-modulated, evenly-paced performance.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

73 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Fantastic Story and Excellent Narration

Exciting storyline and excellent narration really brings this book to life. I could listen to Simon Vance read the phone book. :)

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

37 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Stands the Test of Time!

This classic by Daniel Defoe needs no introduction from me to be familiar to Audible readers. It is the work that Defoe is most well known for, and if you have read his other works you know why. Defoe was a political and religious propagandist and because of this most of his works are philisophical in nature and tend to bore most readers. Robinson Crusoe was his attempt to roll his propaganda into a fiction form that would captivate a reader long enough for him to get his message across. His success with Robinson Crusoe is probably why his later fiction works become saturated with his belief system and tend to dry out quickly and leave the reader feeling like they are being preached to rather than a story told. With this book he strikes a good balance however and creates the masterpiece that stands the test of time.

Simon Vance was the perfect reader for this work, and really made it come alive. His reading of Robinson Crusoe did it justice and was truly enjoyable to listen to.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

33 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

the prodigal without a return


? would it interest you to read the first english novel ever written
? does man's relation to God and the natural world interest you
? do you find introspection and self-reliance to be admirable male virtues

daniel defoe's seminal novel has intrigued readers for centuries
it resonates with old testament judgement, themes and consequences
the story aligns with jonah, the prodigal son and the israelites' exodus

the writing style is surprisingly practical and matter-of-fact
obstacles and efforts and the necessary details of survival predominate
our hero is often disconsolate but rarely depressed or defeated

the book has a significant dose of well presented calvinist theology
defoe assumes that man " left alone " naturally orients toward God
the novel presents true faith and salvation as personal and not institutional

a friend of mine, in college, said he re-read " robinson crusoe " every year
as a young man, this seemed far fetched to me and a bit foolish
now that i'm a grandfather, his choice seems reasonable and even wise





Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

32 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Adrift

This is probably Daniel Defoe’s best known story and possibly the first English language novel ever written. Inspired by the life of explorer Alexander Selkirk, Robinson Crusoe is the story of a shipwrecked English sailor as he struggles to survive while marooned on a tropical island somewhere off the coast of Africa. Despite being written in the early 1700s, the narrative hold up incredibly well. Some parts will strike a modern reader as fairly racist, but I could forgive that considering the time period. To this day, Robinson Crusoe remains an incredible, and surprisingly philosophical, adventure story of a lone man struggling to survive in the unforgiving wilderness.

As for the narration, I’m a huge fan of Simon Vance in general. That said, I think this might be his best work yet. He perfectly captures Crusoe’s voice and Vance’s own natural accent pushes a good performance into the realm of a fantastic one. Just click on the sample and you’ll see/hear what I mean. What are you waiting for? Beyond highly recommended!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

29 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

If you think you know it, you are wrong

Any additional comments?

Don't pass by this book because you've seen too many movies of it.
This book is surprisingly not like those movies.

Now I'm thinking those movies had other agendas. Listen and you might know what I mean. Stop trying to change history! Bad stuff happened and still happens.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

10 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Gabriel Betteredge Knew What He Was Talking About

The head steward in Wilkie Collins’ masterpiece, The Moonstone, uses Robinson Crusoe in much the same way as Robinson Crusoe uses the Bible; as a book to open at random for advice, comfort, and even glimpses into future events. And the advice and comfort he finds there are obviously the source of Betteredge’s rock-like stability and uncommon common sense. Take this example of Crusoe's musings from chapter 9:

“I frequently sat down to meat with thankfulness, and admired the hand of God’s providence, which had thus spread my table in the wilderness. I learned to look more upon the bright side of my condition, and less upon the dark side, and to consider what I enjoyed rather than what I wanted; and this gave me sometimes such secret comforts, that I cannot express them; and which I take notice of here, to put those discontented people in mind of it, who cannot enjoy comfortably what God has given them, because they see and covet something that He has not given them. All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.”

I admit that this listen was a self-assigned duty. A book that looms so large in the popular imagination, from Wilkie Collins, Beatrix Potter and P. G. Wodehouse to Cary Grant and Pierce Brosnan films, needs to be encountered on its own terms (if for no other reason than to dispel the image of it foisted upon us by the popular imagination). But the duty soon became a pleasure. You’d think the story of 28 years of near-perfect solitude might drag; instead, its enlivened by the many struggles, both successful and unsuccessful, to survive those 28 years. The loss of a star for "Overall" and "Story" merely indicates that, for me, this early novel lacks the narrative grip that later practitioners of the craft would achieve (due in large part, I suspect, to the book's necessarily limited cast of characters). So, while not seeing eye to eye with Gabriel Betteredge’s opinion that Robinson Crusoe is the finest book ever written, I do agree that passing it over leaves one a less well-read person.

And once again, Simon Vance is a pleasure to listen to.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars

Great adventure book

one of my favorite books of all time. i've read this book several times growing up and have always found the imagry of daniel defoes writings exceptional. i like to listen to this on my mp3 as i work out at the gym

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

8 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

It doesn't stand up to other adventure stories.

I notice that almost all of the reviews are five star raves and I just cannot get there. Immediately before reading this book I read Ivanhoe (Scott) and Kidnapped (Stevenson). I was new to all of these books and read them for a personal challenge to read more classics. I did not like Robinson Crusoe as much as either of the other two I mentioned. I do have a few observations:

1. I had a hard time getting beyond the racism contained in this book. I recognize that it is a reflection of the times and is not inappropriate when that is considered, but I just couldn't deal with the continual referrals to "savages".

2. I do not like the moralizing found in so many books written in these days. I do not enjoy the religious dogma or the idea that only Christianity is acceptable. The second half of this book was rife with it and I had a hard time finishing.

3. This book felt a lot like a journal at some points. It was filled with descriptions of what the character did to build his life -- but they were presented more like a list than a picture painted with words. I expected to love this part of the book and I think I could have... it just didn't get there.

I enjoyed Simon Vance's narration. I found him quite believable as Robinson Crusoe.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

6 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    1 out of 5 stars

No. Just no.

I have never rolled my eyes as much as I did while listening to this book. Yes, I realize it is a product of its time, and I listened to it as such, but I didn’t enjoy it at all. HOWEVER, I must say that Simon Vance did a great job narrating it. So there’s that.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

5 people found this helpful