The Swiss Family Robinson： A Translation from the Original German

Johann David WyssProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.2
Word count
715K words
Chapters
72

Tags

English Originals Children's Literature Nature ObservationAdventure JourneyFamily AdventureFamily BondsIsland SurvivalComing of AgeSurvival WisdomClassic RetellingExotic CultureParent-Child Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Swiss Family Robinson: A Translation from the Original German by WyssAuthor: Wyss, Johann David, 1743-1818,Language: English, Class: PZ: Language and Literatures: Juvenile belles lettres, Release Date: Dec 19, 2012

Editor's review

The Swiss Family Robinson is a classic adventure novel for young readers by Johann David Wyss; this edition is an English translation from the original German. Its central appeal lies in turning desert-island survival into a family lesson in nature: the father leads the family to use the island's resources to build shelter, identify plants and animals, and solve problems of food and clothing, blending adventure with instruction. As a public-domain eBook, the text is complete and easy to obtain, making it a good entry point for young readers new to classic adventure narratives and for adults revisiting the narrative patterns of "educational adventure" literature. Note that the book carries pronounced period attitudes and a didactic tone, and its treatment of natural resources reflects a late-eighteenth-century perspective; modern readers may read it with a critical eye. Overall, it works better as parent-child reading or English extensive reading material than as a strict survival guide.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. For parent-child reading, first discuss each chapter's survival problem, then compare it with the book's solution.
  2. For English extensive reading, don't look up every new word; first grasp each chapter's events and the family's division of labor.
  3. When reading plant and animal descriptions, compare them with modern knowledge to cultivate critical reading habits.
  4. Proceeding chapter by chapter and briefly noting each family member's skills helps in understanding the structure.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72

FAQ

Is this edition a complete translation or an adaptation? According to the information, this edition is labeled as a translation "from the original German," released by Project Gutenberg. Readers may regard it as an English translation fairly close to the original, but translations may differ in details; for research, compare other editions.
Can the natural history in the book be used as reliable reference? It is not suitable as a direct modern scientific reference. The plant, animal, and survival knowledge serves the narrative and educational intent and reflects a late-eighteenth-century perspective; some descriptions do not match modern classification or safety knowledge. Read it as a historical text and compare it critically with contemporary knowledge.
What age group is it suitable for? As a classic adventure story for young readers, it is generally suitable for upper-primary and middle-grade children with some independent reading ability; younger children are better off hearing it read aloud or shared with a parent, with an adult explaining old-fashioned expressions and period attitudes so that not every practice in the book is taken as a real-life model.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Johann David Wyss Author · Swiss · 1743–1818

Johann David Wyss (1743–1818) was a Swiss writer born in Bern. He served as a military chaplain and later as a pastor at Bern Cathedral. Public information about his life is limited, and he is remembered chiefly for one work. To educate his children, he wrote The Swiss Family Robinson (1812), which tells of a Swiss family shipwrecked on a desert island who survive through labor and cooperation and build a new home. Combining adventure narrative with practical knowledge and moral instruction, the novel was edited and published by his son and gradually became a world classic of children's and adventure literature, translated and adapted many times and still circulating in numerous editions.