The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe

Blatantly stolen from a much cleverer writer than me (Jason Hornsby, author of Eleven Twenty-Three), here are a dozen cool facts you should know about The Eerie Adventures of the Lycanthrope Robinson Crusoe that will make you want to run out and read it.

Or run out and buy it, then run home and read it.

 I suppose you could just order it from home and not run anywhere.

 You get the idea...

1)  The ongoing rivalry between Daniel Defoe and Jonathan Swift described in the Foreword is completely true.  Defoe and Swift had a relationship that swung back and forth between bitter rivalry and open hatred.  Swift’s book Gulliver’s Travels was specifically written to be a one-up on Defoe’s The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner.

2) According to the dates given in Defoe’s original novel, the title character was born the day after a full moon.

3)  Defoe names almost no characters in his original novel, so most of the names in this version were created or came from Lovecraft works.  The shipmaster from Crusoe’s first sea voyage is named Martense.  H.P. Lovecraft’s story “The Lurking Fear,” centers around a mansion built by a wealthy merchant named Gerrit Martense.

4)  The words “werewolf” and “lycanthrope” are never used in the book.  When Crusoe is studied by Moorish wise men, he is told the Arabic name for the beast is almustazeb.  After escaping the island, Crusoe himself references the loup garou of France.

5)  The wise men tell Crusoe many conflicting stories about their reference book, including one which claims it was written by a sorcerer who was driven mad by writing it.  Lovecraft claimed the Necronomiconwas written by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred.

6) According to the dates given in Defoe’s original novel, the title character was shipwrecked on the night of a full moon.

7) The nightmare of a vengeful god, the mist-shrouded valley, the cannibal savages, and Friday’s wooden sword are all elements of the original Robinson Crusoe and were not created for this book.

8) Friday’s father is named Walla-Kay, which Crusoe is told is both a name and a title.  In H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Shadow over Innsmouth,” the narrator is told the story of Obed Marsh who discovered an island of halfbreeds ruled by a priest-chief named Walakea.

9)  When mutineers land on the island and abandon the captain and his loyalist crew, there is one passenger among them, a young man named Wade Jermyn.  In H.P. Lovecraft’s “Arthur Jermyn” the main character references a great-great-great-grandfather, old Sir Wade Jermyn, who was an explorer.

10) The leader of the mutiny is the ship’s boatswain, a Moorish pirate by the name of Slaader.  In H.P. Lovecraft’s “Beyond the Wall of Sleep,” the subject of the story is a Joe Slater, a “strange, repellent scion of primitive Colonial peasant stock” who alternately spells his last name as Slaader.

11) After Crusoe’s party is attacked in the mountains between Spain and France, he spends time recovering in Gevaudan, France.  Gevaudan is the home of the legendary “Beast of Gevaudan,” a monstrous wolf that roamed the countryside.

12) Crusoe’s children are named after famous werewolves from film and television--   Lawrence Talbot (The Wolf Man), David Kessler (An American Werewolf in London), and actress Kate Hodge (who played Randi in The She-Wolf of London).  Crusoe’s wife, Guinevere, is named after a college friend of mine who wanted a character named after her (Guinevere is an early spelling of Jennifer).