Captain Singleton

by Daniel Defoe

Overview

The book tells the story of Bob Singleton, who had been kidnapped as a boy from a good home and grew up with no real home. He came aboard a ship and eventually ended up being cast on an island with other crewmen. They managed to get to Africa and about the first half of the novel deals with the company's travel through Africa until they found a port from which they could get back to Europe. After their return there Singleton became member of another ships' crew and after a mutiny they led the lives of pirates with Singleton as their captain, which mostly covers the last half of the book, finishing in Singleton and a friend being repentant, leaving of their (successful) lives as pirates and returning home in disguise to find a peaceful life. (Excerpt from Goodreads)

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783962727963
Publisher:	Otbebookpublishing
Publication date:	01/10/2019
Series:	Classics To Go
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	225
File size:	826 KB

About the Author

Daniel Defoe (c. 1660 – 24 April 1731), born Daniel Foe, was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer and spy. He is most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe, which is second only to the Bible in its number of translations. He has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the English novel, and helped to popularise the form in Britain with others such as Aphra Behn and Samuel Richardson. Defoe wrote many political tracts and often was in trouble with the authorities, including a spell in prison. Intellectuals and political leaders paid attention to his fresh ideas and sometimes consulted with him. (Wikipedia)

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Daniel Defoe: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text

The Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton

Appendix A: The Test-Run(?) for Singleton

• 1. The King of Pirates: Being an Account of the Famous Enterprises of Captain Avery, the Mock King of Madagascar (1719)

Appendix B: Pirate Writing

• 1. From Penelope Aubin, The Life of Charlotta Du Pont, an English Lady (1723)
• 2. Letter from David Aubin to Abraham and Henry Aubin (3 June 1720)
• 3. Some Memoirs concerning that famous Pyrate Capt. Avery (November 1708)
• 4. From The Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery (1709)
• 5. From A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates (1724)
• 6. From Daniel Defoe, A Review of the State of the British Nation (18 October 1707)

Appendix C: Travel Writing

• 1. From Robert Knox, An Historical Relation of the Island Ceylon (1681)
• 2. From Madagascar: Or, Robert Drury’s Journal (1729)
• 3. From Willem Bosman, A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea (1705)
• 4. From William Dampier, A New Voyage Round the World (1697)
• 5. From Woodes Rogers, A Cruising Voyage Round the World (1712)
• 6. From Herman Moll, Atlas Geographus (1711–17)

Works Cited and Select Bibliography

Editorial Reviews

Manushag Powell’s excellent edition of Captain Singleton fills a need for teachers and students of Defoe and the eighteenth-century novel, since there is no widely available edition of this important work. Powell’s introduction is informative about Defoe and about the eighteenth century’s fascination with pirates. Her copious annotation of the text is judicious; the supplementary readings of other pirate and travel narratives from the period provide very useful contexts for Defoe’s novel.” — John Richetti, University of Pennsylvania, Emeritus

“Captain Singleton, while fascinating, is in many ways a bewildering text for twenty-first-century readers. Rather than attempt to tame it, Powell expertly guides us into its most perplexing and ambiguous aspects, helping us see how fictional projects depart from historical ones, even as fiction and history inform each other. By refusing to resolve the text’s ‘narrative enigmas,’ the introduction urges us toward thinking critically and imaginatively about the tale’s more challenging components. This edition presents Singleton as an opportunity to practice ways of reading that will give readers purchase on a wide array of eighteenth-century prose fictions.” — Eugenia Zuroski, McMaster University

“I can think of nobody better than pirate expert Manushag Powell to edit Defoe’s ripping yarn of the adventures of Captain Bob Singleton, pirate extraordinaire. Her well-judged introduction provides generous intellectual context for new readers of this absorbing novel of global travel and international trade. The excitement and possibilities, as well as the consequences, of European expansionism are brought to readers’ attention through Powell’s inclusion in her appendices of a series of short extracts from the experiences of other eighteenth-century travellers. By using this excellent new edition, students and teachers alike will be able not only to appreciate the importance of Captain Bob within his eighteenth-century context, but also to understand his place in the history of pirate lives and literature.” — Claire Jowitt, University of East Anglia

“There is copious contextual grounding in Manushag Powell’s excellent edition, with meticulously informative notes that will intrigue even the most blasé undergraduate.” — Min Wild, Times Literary Supplement

“Manushag N. Powell’s carefully edited and meticulously researched edition does an outstanding job of combining interpretive lens and pedagogical glossing. … Powell’s edition will introduce generations of students to one of Defoe’s most wide-ranging adventure stories.” — Srividhya Swaminathan, Eighteenth Century Fiction

From the Publisher