Female Robinson Crusoe: A Tale of the American Wilderness

Originally Published 1837.

From the Preface Probably most readers of American Western newspapers, remember the several brief accounts that have, for years past, occasionally been given of children lost in the woods, in states beyond the Alleghany mountains. The following statement of an extraordinary case is more in detail, and its analogy to the circumstances attending the long residence of Alexander Selkirk upon an island, of which he was for a considerable period the only inhabitant, has induced the writer of the part of this work, entitled "The Conclusion," to let it go to the public under the title which Defoe gave to his highly popular production, "Robinson Crusoe," only adding a word characteristic of the difference of sex, the present subject being a heroine instead of a hero. In "The Conclusion," New-York readers will easily recognize some well known facts, concerning personages not unknown to fame. May it be indulgently received by the liberal minded citizens of this country, who are ever ready to encourage every effort of the mind, the motives of which seem to be praiseworthy.