"PERHAPS THERE EXISTS NO OTHER WORK… IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE, WHICH HAS BEEN MORE GENERALLY READ AND MORE UNIVERSALLY ADMIRED"

DEFOE, Daniel. The Whole Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner. London: Printed at the Logographic Press, and Sold by J. Walter, et al., 1785. Two volumes. Octavo, modern half brown calf, burgundy morocco spine labels, marbled boards. $1750.

First "Logographic edition" of Defoe's classic story of survival, with engraved frontispiece in each volume, attractively bound.

Of Defoe's immediately popular and enormously influential novel (first published in 1719), Sir Walter Scott wrote, "Perhaps there exists no other work… in the English language, which has been more generally read and more universally admired" (Allibone, 489). "Much of science fiction is basically Crusoe's island changed to a planet" (PMM 180). "Robinson Crusoe is the most popular, delightful and extraordinary of all Defoe's works… Dr. Johnson observed, 'Nobody ever laid it down without wishing it were longer'" (Lowndes, 613). "Logographic printing, a system whereby short words or groups of letters could be set at once rather than one letter at a time, was invented by John Walter and Henry Johnson in 1780. Walter's shop was the first to use the method, and this is the first Robinson Crusoe so set" (Lovett). Lovett 73. Owner ink signatures, including one to title pages.

Both volumes with expert cleaning to title page and frontispiece; interiors generally clean. An attractively bound, wide-margined copy.