One of the first novelists in English language, Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe is an inspirational adventure fiction for young adults. The protagonist Robinson Crusoe, rejecting the peace of a quiet middle-class life, decides to answer the call of the sea by becoming a sailor. However, fate had other plans for him as his ship wrecks and he ends up in an island, appropriately named island of despair. Crusoe had to survive for two decades in a harsh environment. How his inner strength, resourcefulness, religious and moral viewpoint allowed him to live through the unbearable solitude in that island is the subject of this novel. Another major character of this novel is Friday, Crusoe’s faithful servant, whom Crusoe rescued from man-eaters of the island. Robinson Crusoe builds a life based on agriculture and animal husbandry, educates Friday and finally escapes the island and returns to mainland. A story of survival, persistence and virtue -Robinson Crusoe will inspire any reader.
Defoe, Daniel. Robinson Crusoe, London : Vintage, 2008.
Library Catalogue Entry
First publised in 1895, H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine is the first novel to conceptualise a vehicle that could take humans to past or future. The protagonist of this novel, The Time Traveller, travels to far future using his time machine and meets a group of peaceful people called Eloi. His time machine goes missing and in search of the vehicle he encounters Morlocks - caveman-like underground creatures who runs the machinery and other technologies to make the Eloi life possible. After a series of events,The Time Traveller manages to recover the vehicle from Morlocks and travel farther into future. He comes across perishing species in a dying earth. The Time Traveller keeps leaping forward in time and observes as the sun dies and the earth becomes a cold, hard, frozen rock. The Time Machine is a fast-paced short novel that will entertain readers of any age.
Wells, H.G. The Time Machine, London : Everyman’s Library, 2010.
Library Catalogue Entry
Jonathan Swift’s famous novel Gulliver’s Travels can be described as a philosophical masterpiece, a fairy story or a political comedy, but above all it is an entertaining satire-adventure. The novel tells the story of Lemuel Gulliver, who was a surgeon but decides to go out to the sea to travel. He goes to four voyages - A Voyage to Lilliput, A Voyage to Brobdingnag, Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Luggnagg, Glubbdubdrib, and Japan and A Voyage to the Country of the Houyhnhnms. Gulliver encounters various strange beings, cultures and customs and provides detailed account of his adventure from a comical point of view. After almost 300 years of original publication, Jonathan Swift’s novel Gulliver’s Travel remains a funny and mesmerising read.
Swift, Jonathan. Gulliver's Travels, London : Everyman’s Library, 1991.
Library Catalogue Entry
