Here For Culture. Covid Regency Tea Room. Jane Austen Festival. Your cart is empty. It is said that he was inspired by Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe , but wanted to write a story from which his own children would learn, as the father in the story taught important lessons to his children. As a pastor, Wyss hoped to teach his sons family values, good husbandry, the uses of the natural world and self-reliance.
Wyss' attitude toward education is in line with the teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many of the episodes have to do with Christian-oriented moral lessons such as frugality, husbandry, acceptance, cooperation, etc. The adventures are presented as a series of lessons in natural history and the physical sciences, and resemble other, similar educational books for children in this period, such as Charlotte Turner Smith's Rural Walks: in Dialogues intended for the use of Young Persons , Rambles Further: A continuation of Rural Walks , A Natural History of Birds, intended chiefly for young persons But the novel differs in that it is modeled on Defoe's Robinson Crusoe , a genuine adventure story, and presents a geographically impossible array of mammals, birds, reptiles, and plants including the bamboos, cassavas, cinnamon trees, coconut palm trees, fir trees, flax, Myrica cerifera , rice, rubber plant potatoes, sago palms, and an entirely fictitious kind of sugarcane that probably could never have existed together on a single island for the children's edification, nourishment, clothing and convenience.
Over the years there have been many versions of the story with episodes added, changed, or deleted. Perhaps the best-known English version is by William H. Kingston, first published in Davenport Adams — and Mrs H. Paull As Carpenter and Prichard write in The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature Oxford, , "with all the expansions and contractions over the past two centuries this includes a long history of abridgments, condensations, Christianizing, and Disney products , Wyss's original narrative has long since been obscured.
Although movie and TV adaptations typically name the family "Robinson", it is not a Swiss name; the "Robinson" of the title refers to Robinson Crusoe. The German name translates as the Swiss Robinson , and identifies the novel as belonging to the Robinsonade genre, rather than as a story about a family named Robinson. The novel opens with the family in the hold of a sailing ship, weathering a great storm.
Only the family is saved when the vessel breaks apart on a reef and the crew and other passengers jump into lifeboats without waiting for the little family to join them. As the ship tosses about, the father prays that God will spare them. The Deerslayer. James Fenimore Cooper. Captains Courageous. Rudyard Kipling. The Call of the Wild. Jack London. Herman Melville.
Rider Haggard. Robert Louis Stevenson. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Frank Baum. Robinson Crusoe. Daniel Defoe. The Red Badge of Courage. Stephen Crane. The Call of the Wild and White Fang. Around the World in Eighty Days. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The Wizard of Oz. Treasure Island. The Black Arrow. Five Children and It. The Adventures of Robin Hood. Naturally enough, personal names were adapted, but only minimally with Ernst and Franz, who became Ernest and Francis, while Fritz and Jack Jakob retained their German forms.
It was, of course, a source of future confusions with later publishers that the book was written by J. Wyss and edited by J. Wyss, so the book may on occasion be attributed to a non-existent J. What matters here is the story, and that can be manipulated, abridged or amplified, and details can be changed without any consultation with the author. Indeed, they will be completely unaware of the multiplicity of forms in which the story has circulated. How many will have any idea that in Mary Godolphin produced a version in words of one syllable?
She did this also for Robinson Crusoe. By the time of the thirteenth edition it was being published by the combined firms of Simpkin, Marshall, and Co. These included not simply modifications of the well-known version, but also new translations based on material that had not been available to Godwin. A full German text had been available from , but new versions in French also played an important role.
There may have been an earlier edition. It is more concerned with adventure than with further discoveries in natural history. It focusses first of all on an accident that befalls the mother and on the devotion that the sons display towards her.
Later, mother and Francis disappear, but are eventually discovered in the care of missionaries and a tribe of savages. This version concludes with the arrival of a ship commanded by Captain Krusenstern and with the Zurich astronomer Horner on board.
Ernest, the most passionate scientist among the four sons, departs with the ship, anxious to make observations concerned with the transit of Venus. The rest of the family remain in contentment on the island. The leader of the missionary team is called Willis, and he provided the focus for a continuation of the story by Adrien Paul called Le Pilote Willis , of which an English translation was published in by C.
The shipwreck takes place between Le Havre and Philadelphia round about lat. The translation is stated to be unabridged. The book is copiously illustrated with black and white engravings. It is clear from remarks of this kind that people in the latter half of the nineteenth century were aware that moral positions occupied at the beginning of the century were not necessarily their own and that aspects of the text needed to be altered accordingly.
The basic thrust of the book, however, still remained relevant and attractive. The German text was adapted by J. The pastor father is given the name Vetli, while the boys differ from their originals in that Ernest is the oldest at 16, Fritz is 14, Jack 8 and Franz 6. This links up with the end of the book, when Jack is abducted by savages and then rescued by the help of an Italian called Auferi, who had been shipwrecked twelve years previously and had become the chief of a native tribe.
Many of the natives are killed in the rescue process. Later, a ship called the Maritana arrives and takes Ernest and Jack to Europe, though four years later Ernest returns to the island with a wife. Black, Unsurprisingly or should it be surprisingly? Just which edition it comes from is difficult to ascertain. This is an apt illustration of the problems that the bibliography of The Swiss Family Robinson involves. Many editions cannot easily be located in public collections, so it often proves impossible to find the information needed in order to establish the full derivation of a particular text.
Editions of The Swiss Family Robinson exemplifying all these problems have continued to be published throughout the twentieth century, but they are outside the purview of this study.
The Swiss Family Robinson [by ]. The donkey and the boa constrictor. For us of more than a century later, it requires a considerable effort of the historical imagination to understand just why The Swiss Family Robinson was so popular. Geoffrey Trease, writing in , says:. Persistently pious, indigestibly didactic, it should logically have died long ago. Has there ever been a more blatant example than The Swiss Family Robinson?
But the facts, the discoveries of the abundant resources and variety of the natural world, are integral to the book. The science and geography lessons that it contains are of its essence. Certainly, the religious and moralizing passages were subject to abbreviation or omission as, with the passage of time, they no longer corresponded to the views of the new era.
They are skilfully differentiated. This variety allows for a multiplicity of exploits to suit their ages. What child could resist the idea of living in a large house up a tree? For modern sensibilities, they are worryingly trigger-happy.
Their colonization of the island involves a conquest of nature; their relationship is one of opposition and exploitation.
Is it any wonder that father and mother elect to stay there when The Unicorn provides an opportunity to return to Europe? The island is a romance-free zone, so Fritz has to leave it when the possibility of such a relationship with Jenny Emily Montrose arises. Francis, the youngest, leaves because he feels the need for a larger society in which to develop his talents and also because he thinks a member of the family ought to keep the connexion with Old Switzerland alive.
The book, after all, centres on their exploits, not hers, though she often produces the solution to practical problems. It is educational rather than true to nature and geography. Increasingly, later versions of the story found it necessary to state in editorial introductions that many features of this tropical island do not correspond to geographical reality. With this they made it explicit that the book was not to be understood simply as a disguised textbook, but rather as a work of imagination with roots in both adventure and exploration.
Its moral qualities are a reflection of the age in which it was written and were no more than parents and perhaps children expected. Alderson London: Oxford University Press, , pp. Jahrgang, Nr. Tabart Winchester: St. Check if your institution has already acquired this book: authentification to OpenEdition Freemium for Books. You can suggest to your institution to acquire one or more ebooks published on OpenEdition Books.
Do not hesitate to give them our contact information: OpenEdition - Freemium Department access openedition. C - F Marseille You can also fill in the form below with, which will enable us to forward your librarians your suggestion of acquisition.
Thank you. We will forward your request to your library as soon as possible. OpenEdition is a web platform for electronic publishing and academic communication in the humanities and social sciences.
0コメント