Cost and Registration Information

Early Registration Price (August 27 at 9 am** – September 13 at 4 pm): $230
Regular Registration Price (September 13 at 4 pm – first day of class): $253

** Registration opens online at 9 am. Phone registration will be accepted starting at 10 am.

Members, seniors, and students get a 10% discount.

Register online

Seminar Description

In the 300 years since it was first published, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe has never been out of print. Semi-based on a true story, the novel is one of adventure and contemplation, and Crusoe is by turns traveler and castaway; mariner and builder; slave and slave owner; hermit and companion. The novel has been endlessly adapted and abridged and has influenced writers including Swift, Rousseau, Shelley, Poe, and Marx. In this class, we will read the novel and contemplate Crusoe's origins, long afterlife, and place in today's world.

Six sessions. E - $230, L - $253

Jill Gage is the Custodian of the John M. Wing Foundation on the History of Printing and Bibliographer of British Literature and History at the Newberry Library. She received her PhD in English literature from the University of London in 2015. She holds a BA and MA in English Literature from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and an MS in library and information science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Materials List

Required:

• Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe. Norton, 1993. ISBN: 978-0393964523.

First Reading:

• There is no reading assignment for the first class.

This class is part of the Newberry’s Adult Education Seminars Program. Learn more about our registration procedures.