DEFOE, Daniel

The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.

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C. Cooke, London, 1790. Three volumes, frontispiece and engraved title in the first volume, nine other plates; a very nice set in contemporary tree calf, double red morocco labels on gilt spines, hinges rubbed but strong. Cooke's edition. Although the edition is not dated, the frontispiece portrait of Defoe is signed 'June 7, 1797' and all of the plates are signed between 1793 and 1799.

For much of the eighteenth century, despite a constant flow of editions, English critical interest in Robinson Crusoe languished. It was not until the 1780s that there was a resurgence, and a whole series of newly illustrated editions began to be produced. The engravings for this edition are done by some of the pre-eminent book illustrators of the period, including Corbould, Allen, Kirk and Warren. Richard Corbould in particular had a long involvement with Cooke's series of novels, and his illustrations 'show great taste, and occupy one of the highest places in that department of art' (DNB).

The publication of the novel in Cooke's series ('or Novelist's Entertaining Library, containing a Complete Collection of Universally Approved Adventures Tales &c. by the Most Esteem'd Authors, Superbly Embellished') highlights the increasing importance the work was accruing as an educational novel. This was, of course, largely due to the 1762 publication of Rousseau's Emile, in which he called Defoe's novel the best treatise on natural education.
Blewett, 'The Illustration of Robinson Crusoe', Illustrations of Robinson Crusoe, p. 198.

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