Age of DiscoveryCulture & Arts Robinson Crusoe and the English novel 1719Notable Daniel Defoe's realistic first-person tale of a castaway becomes a bestseller and helps establish the novel as a popular form in English. ▲ MattersSaveShareTrace roots Longest chain: The Big Bang → First stars ignite → Supernovae seed heavy elements → The Sun forms → Earth forms → First oceans → First life → Photosynthesis evolves → Great Oxidation Event → Complex cells (eukaryotes) → Multicellular life → First animals → Cambrian Explosion → First vertebrates → Jawed fish → Fish walk onto land → The amniotic egg → The Great Dying → Dinosaurs appear → Asteroid ends the dinosaurs → Early primates → Apes split from monkeys → Human line splits from chimpanzees → Walking upright → First stone tools → Genus Homo appears → Homo erectus → Control of fire → Habitual fire and cooking → Homo sapiens appears → Complex language → Natufian villages → Oldest known bread → Agriculture begins → Irrigation → Uruk and the first cities → Cylinder seals → Writing (cuneiform) → Akkadian Empire → Neo-Assyrian Empire → Persian Empire founded → Cyrus Cylinder → Return from exile and the Second Temple → Birth of Jesus (traditional date) → Jesus of Nazareth crucified → Paul spreads Christianity → Edict of Milan → Christianity becomes Rome's state religion → Carolingian minuscule → Gutenberg's printing press → Don Quixote → Robinson Crusoe and the English novel Community notesLoading notes… Learn more ranked by votesDocumentgutenberg.orgRobinson Crusoe, full text (Project Gutenberg) ↗Editor's pickBookIan WattThe Rise of the Novel ↗Editor's pickBookDaniel DefoeRobinson Crusoe ↗Editor's pickVideoSearch on YouTubeRobinson Crusoe rise of the novel ↗Editor's pickVideoSearch on YouTubeDaniel Defoe Robinson Crusoe summary ↗Editor's pick