Anthologies, journal articles, and edited collections about Robinson Crusoe continue to emerge from the presses every year, almost as ubiquitous as the famous Robinsonades that became their own genre in the eighteenth century. The proliferation of scholarship around Robinson Crusoe, like the proliferation of Robinsonades, represents not just the influence of Crusoe as a text, but also the influence of the idea of Crusoe, the myth, to use Ian Watt's description, separate from the existence of the novel.1 As one of the most recent additions to this body of scholarship, Robinson Crusoe after 300 Years traces the influence of both text and myth in the past three centuries. In doing so, it contributes to the continuing legacy of the novel, but also strikingly overlooks the significance of race in that legacy.
The ten essays in this new collection are widely varied. They move between discussions of Robinsonades at...
