Children's Literature, Popular Culture, and Robinson Crusoe

This study of the long and varied afterlife of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, primarily in the overlapping arenas of children's and popular culture, offers new insights into not only the continued popularity and relevance of Crusoe's story, but into how modern conceptions of childhood have been shaped by nostalgia and by ideas of 'the popular.' Because it enjoyed such tremendous success as a pedagogical work for children and as a source for children's and popular entertainments, Robinson Crusoe provides a unique case study in the development of our ideas of childhood and the points of intersection between children's and popular cultures. Drawing on a wide range of adaptations and remediations, including children's abridgements, print 'robinsonades, ' chapbooks, popular songs, pantomimes, toys, games, and various consumer items, this book offers a fresh consideration of the place Crusoe has occupied in our culture for almost three centuries.