Books like “Robinson Crusoe”

What to read after “Robinson Crusoe” by Daniel Defoe: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
Treasure Island
Robert Louis Stevenson · 1883
Same genre: “Adventure novel”
- Deserted Island
- Nautical Adventure
Young Jim Hawkins finds a treasure map in a dead sailor's chest and sails for a distant island where a pirate's gold is buried. Among the crew is the one-legged cook Long John Silver, whose charm hides a plan to seize the hoard.
2
The Mysterious Island
Jules Verne · 1875
Same genre: “Adventure novel” and “Robinsonade”
Five Union prisoners escape a siege in a hot-air balloon and are blown onto an uncharted island. There they rebuild a small civilization from its resources, aided by an unseen hand and threatened by a hidden danger.
3
The Sea-Wolf
Jack London · 1904
Same genre: “Adventure novel”
- Nautical Adventure
- Survival
A literary critic survives a ferry collision in San Francisco Bay and is picked up by a sealing schooner commanded by Wolf Larsen, a brutal and brilliant captain. Thrown into the crew's rough life, the soft scholar must find his footing under a man who answers to no law but his own.
4
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas
Jules Verne · 1870
Same genre: “Adventure novel”
- Nautical Adventure
Three men are taken aboard the Nautilus, a submarine commanded by the brilliant Captain Nemo, after it attacks their ship. As they travel the ocean depths they witness wonders and terrors of the undersea world while their host's motives stay hidden.
5
The Long Ships
Frans G. Bengtsson · 1941
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
- Nautical Adventure
- Survival
The Viking Red Orm sails from his Scandinavian home in the late tenth century and is carried through raids, courts and distant seas, from Andalusia to the Byzantine guard. A picaresque saga of raids, treasure and shifting faith, told with dry humour and a wide view of the Viking world.
6
Life of Pi
Yann Martel · 2001
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
- Nautical Adventure
- Survival
After a shipwreck, a teenage boy shares a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. For months he struggles to survive at sea while holding on to his beliefs and his story. A fable about faith, storytelling and the versions of events we choose to believe.
7
The Wager
David Grann · 2023
Similar setting: “Deserted Island” and “Nautical Adventure”
In 1740 a British warship hunting a Spanish treasure galleon is wrecked off Patagonia. Months later two groups of survivors reach South America with opposing stories, and a court martial must decide which men were heroes and which were mutineers.
8
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville · 1851
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
- Nautical Adventure
A wandering sailor joins the whaling ship Pequod, whose captain is obsessed with hunting the white whale that took his leg. As the voyage stretches across the oceans, the crew is dragged toward a reckoning. A vast, digressive novel of obsession, the sea and human nature.
9
Lord of the Flies
William Golding · 1954
Similar setting: “Deserted Island”
- Deserted Island
- Survival
A group of schoolboys survives a plane crash on a deserted island and tries to govern themselves. Order slips first into fear and then into savagery as the boys turn on one another. An allegory about civilisation, violence and what people become without rules.
10
Master and Commander
Patrick O'Brian · 1969
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
- Nautical Adventure
In 1800, Royal Navy captain Jack Aubrey takes command of a small brig and meets the ship's surgeon, Stephen Maturin, a naturalist and secret intelligence agent. Their friendship grows as the crew pursues a Spanish frigate across the Mediterranean and Atlantic.
11
The Old Man and the Sea
Ernest Hemingway · 1952
Similar setting: “Nautical Adventure”
- Nautical Adventure
- Survival
An aging Cuban fisherman, Santiago, has gone eighty-four days without catching a fish. When a huge marlin finally takes his line far out to sea, he must hold on through a long, painful contest of endurance and will.
12
The Decagon House Murders
Yukito Ayatsuji · 1987
Similar setting: “Deserted Island”
- Deserted Island
- Survival
Seven members of a university mystery club sail to a remote island that was the scene of an unsolved family murder a year earlier. Cut off by a storm, they are killed one by one, and the survivors must use the rules of detective fiction to name the killer before none are left.