Robinsonian

comparative more Robinsonian · superlative most Robinsonian

1. Suggestive of the fictional Robinson Crusoe, a resourceful castaway on a desert island.

   Once he had reached the tropics, he would leave the ship and begin his ‘Robinsonian project’.

   2015, Andrea Wulf, “Art, Ecology and Nature: Ernst Haeckel and Humboldt”, in The Invention of Nature: The Adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the Lost Hero of Science, London: John Murray, published 2016, →ISBN, part V (New Worlds: Evolving Ideas), page 301

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   Before the assembly had recovered from the stir caused by Chick’s farewell, a new wave of surprise swept the crowd: for Levy had given the word to Eleazar, popularly known as Crusoe on account of his Robinsonian escapades and physique.

   1947, Y[itzhak] Ben Aharon, “Hagshamah”, in Listen, Gentile! The Story of a Life, London: Staples Press Limited, →OCLC, part 2 (The Rebel), page 86

   In this sensitive book we can live step by step the author’s voluntary exile at Walden Pond, witness and feel the change of seasons in his Robinsonian isolation: the silver petals of the snow silently drifting to the ground, […]

   1959 August, Félix Martí Ibáñez, “Friends for the Road”, in Félix Martí Ibáñez, editor, International Record of Medicine: […], volume 172, number 8 (whole 2918), New York, N.Y.: MD Publications, Inc., page 183

   The bringing in of “Friday,” or of one or more other persons, after analysis of strictly Robinsonian isolation, then serves to show how the addition of other persons affects the discussion.

   1982, Murray N[ewton] Rothbard, “A Crusoe Social Philosophy”, in The Ethics of Liberty, New York, N.Y.: New York University Press, published 2002, →ISBN, page 29

   […] Magic Alex (born Yannis Alexis Mardas, television repairman and genius in residence at Apple Electronics at the expense of the increasingly chaotic finances of his four bosses; a feverish swindler working on the creation of stereo surround-sound wallpaper and the construction of a floating communal house on the Greek island of Leslo so the Beatles could live there with their families; and who knows, maybe that Robinsonian project was abandoned after what happened to my parents at sea); […]

   2005, Rodrigo Fresán, translated by Natasha Wimmer, “The Invader”, in Kensington Gardens, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, published 2006, →ISBN, page 162

   There is no cave in any Selkirk narrative; he lived in a hut made of sticks and grass. Crusoe lived in a fortified cave, a residence suitable for a colonial overlord in savage lands, not an unarmed maroon expecting to be rescued by English sailors. Indeed the whole island has been reimagined by later visitors to satisfy Robinsonian dreams, without taking the trouble to separate fact and fiction.

   2016, Andrew Lambert, “The Magical Island of Daniel Defoe”, in Crusoe’s Island: A Rich and Curious History of Pirates, Castaways and Madness, London: Faber & Faber, →ISBN, page 52

   Synonyms: Crusoean, Crusoesque, Robinsonesque