1804 Stockdale Edtn THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE By Daniel Defoe Illus. Thomas Stothard

1804 Stockdale Edition
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE
By Daniel Defoe

KEY DETAILS
Condition: Good
Format: Hardcover, Octavo (Standard) (8vo 6 × 9 in 152 × 229 mm )
Note: Binding/size selection follows standard bibliographic conventions and is approximate; exact measurements may vary.
Published By: John Stockdale, Piccadilly, London, 1804
Language: English
Illustrated By: Thomas Stothard
Collation: Two Volumes
Dust Jacket: None, as issued
SKU: BTETM0001847
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 2Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request

DESCRIPTION
THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE
Written by Himself

A complete two-volume 1804 edition of Daniel Defoe’s The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, published in London by John Stockdale and illustrated with the celebrated designs of Thomas Stothard, engraved by Thomas Medland.
This is the second Stockdale edition of Defoe’s masterpiece, following Stockdale’s important illustrated edition of 1790. It retains the influential Stothard illustration programme and includes George Chalmers’s substantial Life of Daniel De Foe, together with an engraved portrait of the author.
The full original engraved illustration suite in this copy has been physically checked and is complete.
Stockdale’s editions of Robinson Crusoe are notable landmarks in the visual and publishing history of the novel. Thomas Stothard’s compositions became among the best-known early illustrations of Defoe’s story and helped establish much of the visual vocabulary subsequently associated with Crusoe and his island.
Presented in two volumes in half calf over marbled boards, with gilt decoration and lettering to the spines.

CONDITION, COLLATION & COPY NOTES
COLLATION
Two Volumes

Volume I: viii, 405 pp.
Volume II: v, [1], 446 pp.

With engraved title material, engraved portrait of Daniel Defoe, and the complete suite of engraved plates after designs by Thomas Stothard and engraved by Thomas Medland.
The original Stothard/Medland plate suite has been physically checked against the volumes and is complete.
Bibliographic descriptions may vary slightly in their treatment of preliminary leaves, engraved title-pages and separately inserted engraved matter.

Additional Insert
A separate later illustration signed “Wentworth” is loosely inserted in the book.
This illustration does not form part of the original 1804 Stockdale collation or the Stothard/Medland engraved suite. It is retained with the set as associated later ephemera.

Complete Two-Volume Set

An attractive and complete antiquarian set showing honest wear consistent with its age and use.
The half-calf bindings show rubbing, scuffing and surface wear, particularly to the spines, joints, corners and board edges. The leather is rubbed and faded in places, with wear and some loss around the spine extremities. The gilt decoration and lettering remain visible but show age-related fading and wear. The marbled paper boards are rubbed and abraded in places.
Internally, the volumes show age-toning with scattered spotting and foxing throughout, heavier on some leaves and engraved plates. Some offsetting from the engravings is present, as commonly encountered in illustrated books of this period.
The engraved title to Volume II shows notable spotting. Minor edge defects and a closed marginal tear are present to individual leaves. An early ownership inscription is present to an endpaper.
Despite the cosmetic wear, the set retains its important bibliographical components and the complete original engraved illustration suite.
The books have been physically checked and all plates called for in the original illustration programme are present.

Binding: Half calf over marbled boards, gilt-decorated spines

Please see Photos as part of condition report.

REFERENCES
Lowndes, William Thomas: The Bibliographer’s Manual of English Literature, revised and enlarged by Henry G. Bohn – Lowndes I, 614.
Ex Bibliotheca Hugh Frederick Hornby: Catalogue of the Art Library Bequeathed by Hugh Frederick Hornby to the Free Public Library of the City of Liverpool, p. 148.
Institutional examples of the 1804 Stockdale edition are also recorded in major research collections including the New York Public Library and HathiTrust.

The present copy measures approximately 234 × 140 mm and represents the standard 8vo / large 8vo issue. It should not be confused with the substantially larger Large Paper 4to issue of the same edition.

SYNOPSIS
Following a disastrous shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe finds himself alone on a remote and apparently uninhabited island.
Recovering what he can from the wreck, Crusoe gradually constructs a new existence through ingenuity, labour and determination. He builds shelter, cultivates food, domesticates animals and attempts to impose order upon his isolation.
As the years pass, Crusoe’s physical struggle for survival develops into a deeper meditation on faith, providence, society and human nature.
His eventual encounter with Friday fundamentally changes his isolated world and introduces questions of cultural encounter, power, civilisation and colonialism that remain central to modern interpretations of the novel.
First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe became one of the foundational works of English prose fiction and one of the most influential adventure narratives ever written.
This 1804 Stockdale edition is particularly desirable for its complete suite of engravings after Thomas Stothard, engraved by Thomas Medland, and for the inclusion of George Chalmers’s early biographical account of Daniel Defoe.

AUTHOR BIO
Daniel Defoe (c. 1660–1731) was an English writer, journalist, merchant, pamphleteer and political commentator, and is regarded as one of the formative figures in the development of the English novel.
His best-known work, Robinson Crusoe, was first published in 1719 and became one of the most widely read and translated works of English literature.
Written with the immediacy of an autobiographical account, the novel follows the extraordinary experiences of a castaway who survives for decades on an isolated island. Its combination of adventure, realism, religion, economic individualism and psychological observation proved enormously influential.
Defoe was extraordinarily prolific, producing hundreds of works on subjects ranging from politics and economics to religion, crime, social conditions and the supernatural.
His other major literary works include Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year, Colonel Jack and Roxana.

ILLUSTRATOR
Thomas Stothard
Thomas Stothard RA (1755–1834) was one of the most prolific and influential British book illustrators of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
He produced designs for hundreds of literary, historical and religious publications, working with many of the leading publishers and engravers of his period.
His illustrations for Robinson Crusoe, originally produced for John Stockdale’s celebrated 1790 edition and subsequently used in the 1804 edition, became among the most recognisable early visual interpretations of Defoe’s novel.
Thomas Medland was an English engraver particularly associated with book illustration and topographical work. His engravings after Stothard form the principal illustrative suite in Stockdale’s editions of Robinson Crusoe.