41. The | Life | And | Strange Surprizing | Adventures | Of | Robinson Crusoe, | Of York, Mariner: | [Nine lines] Written by Himſelf. | London: | Printed for W. Taylor at the Ship in Pater-Noſter- | Row. MDCCXIX.
The story is told of how Defoe's manuscript was refused by many of the London publishers before William Taylor, one of the most esteemed and successful of them, accepted it. The book came out April 25, and its success was immediate; a second edition was called for only seventeen days after the first; a third followed twenty-five days later, and a fourth on the 8th of August. The Farther | Adventures | Of Robinson Crusoe; | Being the Second and Laſt Part | Of His | Life ... To which is added a Map of the World ... was issued in August of the same year, and was followed on August 6, 1720, by a sequel called Serious Reflections | During | The | Life ... of Robinson Crusoe. Further evidence of the popularity of the work is furnished by the piracies, numerous imitations, and translations that appeared within a short time after its publication.
Lowndes and others repeat an error of Dibdin's in saying that Robinson Crusoe first appeared in the Original London Post, or Heathcot's Intelligence, from No. 125 to No. 289 inclusive, the latter dated October 7, 1719. The story was reprinted in that paper, "with a care to divert and entertain the reader," but beginning October 7, 1719, and ending with No. 289, dated October 19, 1720. The unsigned folding map was used in this last as well as in the fourth edition of the first part. An engraving representing the hero of the story is placed sometimes as a frontispiece. It is signed, like the map of the island, "Clark & Pine Sc.," and, while not remarkable for artistic merit, is certainly notable as having been the model of all future conceptions.
Defoe sold all his property in Robinson Crusoe to Taylor, who gained a very large fortune by it and its successors. When that worthy man died, only five years after the publication of the book, he was reputed to be worth between forty and fifty thousand pounds. He added an introduction to The Serious Reflections, in which he says:
"The ſucceſs the two former Parts have met with, has been known by the Envy it has brought upon the Editor, expreſs'd in a thouſand hard Words from the Men of Trade; the Effect of that Regret which they entertain'd at their having no Share in it: And I muſt do the Author the Justice to ſay that not a Dog has wag'd his Tongue at the Work itſelf, nor has a Word been ſaid to leſſen the Value of it, but which has been the viſible Effect of that Envy at the good Fortune of the Bookſeller."
A guarantee of this good fortune may be seen in the imprint of the book, which now reads: "At the Ship and Black-Swan in Pater-noſter Row," that last-named property having been purchased out of the proceeds of its sale. After Taylor's death, the business was sold to Thomas Longman, the founder of the firm of Longmans, Green & Co., for over three thousand pounds.
Octavo.
Collation: 3 l., pp. 364. [4 l.] pp. 373. [9 l.], pp. 270, 84 [2 l.]