Selkirk's Island
The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe

By Diana Souhami
Harcourt, $24
ISBN 0151005265

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Castaway: a seaman's real-life island survival story

The one constant in Alexander Selkirk's tumultuous life was the call of the sea. Born in 1680 in Fife in eastern Scotland, Selkirk saw the sea as a source of adventure quite different from his small-town existence. What he found, however, as he served on the ships of privateers -- pirates whose thievery was encouraged or approved by the government -- was a life that was often dangerous, violent and unremittingly harsh. In 1704 while serving as a ship's master, Selkirk had serious differences with his captain, who accused him of inciting mutiny and left him alone on the island of Juan Fernandez, several hundred miles off the cost of Chile. Selkirk survived on the island for four years and four months until he was rescued and returned home.

Although he is largely forgotten today, for many years Selkirk's experience on the island was believed to have been the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, which is generally regarded as the first novel in the English language. Although some scholars now dismiss the Selkirk/Defoe connection, the seaman's life story is compelling in itself. Diana Souhami, the author of such acclaimed books as Mrs. Keppel and Her Daughter, tells his story in her new book, a gem called Selkirk's Island: The True and Strange Adventures of the Real Robinson Crusoe. Her book is impressively researched and elegantly crafted. Her research included living on the island itself, and she is able to make the sights and sounds there come vividly alive.

Souhami reminds us how harrowing life aboard ship could be. The chances of contracting scurvy was greater than gaining gold. Crews were comprised of men who had no hope of bettering themselves elsewhere and were attracted by free liquor and the hope for treasure. Officers and owners could not always be trusted to keep agreed-on principles of conduct in decision making and in dividing treasure. In addition, she writes, "Reading the longitude was a frustrating puzzle and navigation was as much luck as science. It was easy to get grandly lost, to be all at sea, a prey to hostile ships, storms, dwindling rations and the ravages of disease."

In describing Selkirk's life on the island she wisely does not assume much more than the sketchy documentation provides. He was resourceful and lucky. "Whatever The Island [as she refers to it] had, he could use, whatever it lacked, he must do without." In surviving from day to day, he found strength. "It was as if The Island claimed him with its secrets, its essential existence, made him a part of its rhythms, turned him fleetingly into more than he was."

Rescue did not lead to great fame -- or inner peace -- but to further difficulties, death and a fierce legal battle between his two wives, each unknown to the other.

Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to BookPage.