"I, poor, miserable Robinson Crusoe, being shipwrecked, during a dreadful storm, in the offing, came on shore on this dismal, unfortunate island, which I called the Island of Despair, all the rest of the ship's company being drowned, and myself almost dead, " Crusoe writes in his first entry.

WSJ: Fiction as Authentic as Fact | Robinson Crusoe | Daniel Defoe | Masterpiece by Danny Heitman