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This month marks the 300th anniversary of the death of Alexander Selkirk, the Scottish sailor who served as inspiration for Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” a novel cherished by generations of ...

Selkirk's Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe by Diana Souhami (Harvest, $13). There really was a real Robinson Crusoe whose life inspired Daniel Defoe's 1719 novel.

The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe By Diana Souhami Harcourt. 246 pp. $24 In the spring of 1719, an astonishingly prolific British journalist named Daniel Defoe published a ...

Q: More than once I have heard that the character Robinson Crusoe was based on the life of a real person. Is this true? B.H., Montrose, Colo. A: It’s true. Daniel Defoe wrote of the adventures of ...