The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton (1)

Daniel DefoeJun 2024

Rating 3.5
Word count
29K words
Chapters
3

Tags

Foreign Literature Colonial TradeEnglish LearningAdventure JourneyFate and FortuneReformed WandererSea VoyageLonely Drifting19th CenturyExotic JourneyExotic Culture

Summary

Robinson Crusoe's author Daniel Defoe tells the story of Captain Singleton, an English buccaneer whose life spans slave trading in Guinea, mutiny, piracy in the Indian Ocean, and a final retreat into quiet repentance. This English-language edition is suited to readers of English who enjoy adventure fiction.

The novel is said to have been inspired by the real pirate Henry Every, born in Portsmouth in 1653, who went to sea as an apprentice in his teens, made his name in the slave trade in the Gulf of Guinea, and at forty served as first mate of the armed privateer Charles II. After Every's crew disbanded in 1696, most were hanged on reaching English soil; only Every escaped, and no one ever saw him again, though some said he lived out his days in Dublin and others claimed to have seen him in his native Portsmouth.

His story was dramatized at the Theatre Royal in London to great acclaim, and Defoe's celebrated Life, Adventures and Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton draws its hero from Every. In the novel's closing pages Singleton repents of his conduct and lives contentedly in the London suburbs with his friend William and William's sister.

A long novel of seafaring, adventure and the settlement of a deserted island, it reflects the life, morals and ideals of Britain's colonial age and became a popular success on publication.

Editor's review

After Robinson Crusoe, Defoe returned to the sea voyage, adventure and island settlement in Captain Singleton, here presented in the original English, Volume One. Drawing on the legend of the real pirate Henry Every, the novel follows Singleton through slave trading, piracy, foreign lands and eventual repentance and retirement, combining the pace of an adventure story with reflections on colonial morality, wealth and conscience. Defoe's plain, detailed narration is dense with nautical terms and geographical particulars, which makes the book useful endurance training for reading long English fiction. Volume One concentrates on the hero's origins, his first voyages and his early adventures, and is best read chapter by chapter while tracing the characters and the route. For readers who want to see the eighteenth-century English novel from the inside and to feel the original prose rather than a translation, this volume is a friendly place to start.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Not a good fit for

Reading tips

  1. Read the opening and closing pages of each chapter first to grasp the course of the voyage, then go back over the middle passages so the terminology does not break your rhythm.
  2. Keep a running list of characters, ships and ports and refer back to it as new names appear.
  3. After each chapter, retell the main events in two or three English sentences; this tests comprehension and builds useful adventure vocabulary.
  4. Do not look up every technical term; guess meaning from context and check key words together once the chapter is finished.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. Preface
  3. The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Single

FAQ

What level of English do I need to read this novel in the original? A level around CET-4 or sustained upper-secondary reading should be enough to handle long complex sentences and a fair number of unfamiliar words. Defoe's sentences are not obscure, but the narration is detailed and the nautical vocabulary is extensive, so readers with smaller vocabularies may stumble on particulars; a dictionary or a bilingual edition alongside will help.
How does this book relate to Robinson Crusoe? Both are Defoe's long sea-going adventures, both involve voyages, islands and foreign experience, and both are concerned with how people choose and change morally in extreme circumstances. But Captain Singleton's hero is closer to a pirate and trader, and the narrative leans more on voyages and observations; it is not a sequel to Robinson Crusoe.
Do I have to go on to Volume Two after Volume One? Volume One lays out the hero's origins, his first voyages and early adventures, and the story is not yet resolved. To follow Singleton's full career and his final fate, continue into Volume Two; if you only want a feel for Defoe's English narration, Volume One alone offers solid reading practice.
What should I do about all the nautical terms in the original? You need not look up every word. Judge from context what kind of thing it is, whether part of the ship, a wind or an action, and keep reading; after each chapter, pick out the key words that recur and check them together. This keeps the pace and gradually builds a working nautical vocabulary.

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

Daniel Defoe Author · English · 1660–1731

Daniel Defoe (1660–1731) was an English novelist, political writer and journalist, born into a merchant family in London. He worked in trade and ran periodicals in his early years, and was imprisoned several times; these rich and turbulent experiences provided ample material for his writing. At the age of 59 he published Robinson Crusoe, hailed as a founding work of English realist fiction, and he came to be known as “the father of the English novel.” His other major works include Moll Flanders, A Journal of the Plague Year and Roxana. Defoe drew largely on real life and personal observation, writing with concrete, vivid narration and a gift for lifelike detail that lends his fiction a strong sense of reality; his influence on the development of the English novel has been profound.