[para. 1]: “Since its publication in 1719 Defoe's Robinson Crusoe has been adopted into the cultural imagination of all societies in the world. Indeed, the story of Robinson's solitary survival on his desert island has achieved the status of myth. Defoe's text has not only been endlessly reprinted (one count made in the 1990s puts the figure at well over 700 editions) and translated into virtually every written language, including those no one speaks, such as Esperanto and shorthand, and its story has been edited and revised into versions for almost every age and condition of childhood from baby-books to teenage-readers.”