The Swiss Family Robinson

I will spare you a description,' said my wife, of our first day's occupations; truth to tell, I spent the time chiefly in anxious thought and watching your progress and signals. I rose very early this morning, and with the utmost joy perceiving your signal that all was right, hastened to reply to it, and then while my sons yet slumbered, I sat down and began to consider how our position could be improved....

Johann David Wyss (1743-1818) was, like the narrator of his famous story of survival on an uninhabited island, a Swiss pastor who had four sons. It was to entertain and instruct these children that he devised the idea of the island and its plethora of natural resources, but the writing of Der schweizerische Robinson is said to have been the responsibility of one of the sons, Johann Rudolf (1782-1830). First published in 1812, it was first translated into English two years later. Since then its translators have been many and they have freely adapted and expanded the original German text, making it one of the most popular novels of all time.

Louis John Rhead (1857-1926), an American artist, was born in England. He illustrated many classics of children's literature, including Gulliver's Travels (1913), Grimms' Fairy Tales (1917) and Stevenson's Kidnapped (1921), all for the firm of Harper in New York. His illustrations for The Swiss Family Robinson, 'done from sketches made in the tropics', were first published in 1909.