First published in 1719, Robinson Crusoe purported to be an authentic account of the sufferings of a shipwrecked seafarer. Daniel Defoe's novel was later revealed as fiction, but his hero's name was already a synonym for someone stranded in otherwise uninhabited territory. Assembled and illustrated by a renowned maritime author, these dramatic stories of hardships, desperate measures, and heroic deeds recount the stranger-than-fiction exploits of real-life Crusoes. Their incredible adventures range through the ages and around the globe, from uncharted regions of the North Pole to the wilds of Patagonia.