The Swiss Family Robinson

by Wyss, Johann D.; Seelye, John; Seelye, John

• ISBN13: 9780143104995
• ISBN10: 0143104993
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-05-29
• Publisher: Penguin Classics

Summary

Soon to be a major motion picture from Disney, this beloved classic is published here in its authoritative original English version One of the world’s best-loved stories of shipwreck and survival, The Swiss Family Robinsonportrays a family’s struggle to create a new life for themselves on a strange and fantastic tropical island. Blown off course by a raging storm, the family—a Swiss pastor, his wife, their four young sons, plus two dogs and a shipload of livestock—must rely on one another in order to adapt to their needs the natural wonders of their exotic new home. Inspired by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, this classic story of invention and adventure has fired the imaginations of readers since it first appeared in 1812. Freely translated over the years, with major sections excised and new subplots added, the novel is published here in its original English translation, fully restored for a new generation of readers.

Author Biography

Johann Wyss (1743-û1818) was a Swiss pastor who devised the idea of the island in The Swiss Family Robinson as a way to entertain and instruct his four sons.
John Seelye is a graduate research professor at the University of Florida. He has edited a number of Penguin Classics, including Mark Twain-'s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.