The prototype of Robinson Crusoe was a stubborn Scottish sailor, Alexander Selkirk who while cruising quarreled with the captain: English Essay, MU, Ireland

The prototype of Robinson Crusoe was a stubborn Scottish sailor, Alexander Selkirk who while cruising quarreled with the captain of the ship and had himself put ashore in 1704 on the uninhabited island of Juan Fernandez. After some initial difficulties, he was rescued in 1709 but he was discovered quite satisfied with his island life.

Thus, Robinson Crusoe has a firm basis in actuality. His fiction often starts from and very often stays very close to a fact or even a series of facts.

In writing Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe was not consciously writing a novel, he was writing a spoof autobiography that was to be taken by his readers as fact.

The secret of the uncanny verisimilitude Defoe achieves has often been analyzed. He is the master of the literal: he produces his illusion of complete reality by employing a mass of circumstantial detail of a kind no one would bother to invent. The exactitude is characteristic – the dates and geographical place names are given.

Crusoe was born in the year 1632, in the city of York. He got stranded on the desolate island on the 30th of September 1659. He left the island on the 19th of December 1686, after a stay of 28 years, two months, and nineteen days. In a way, the improbable adventures have been caged by the calendar, tamed, and authenticated.

The subtitle of the novel plays a prominent role in the process of authentification as it convinces the readers that what they are going to read is nothing but the truth.