
The Swiss Family Robinson
'The Swiss Family Robinson' Summary
The novel opens with the family in the hold of a sailing ship, weathering a great storm. The ship's crew evacuate without them, and William and Elizabeth and their four children (Fritz, Ernest, Jack and Franz) are left to survive alone. As the ship tosses about, the father – William – prays that God will spare them.
The ship survives the night and the family finds themselves within sight of a tropical desert island. The next morning, they decide to get to the island they can see beyond the reef. With much effort, they construct a vessel out of tubs. After they fill the tubs with food and ammunition and all other articles of value they can safely carry, they row toward the island. Two dogs from the ship named Turk and Juno swim beside them. The ship's cargo of livestock (including a cow, a donkey, two goats, six sheep, a ram, a pig, chickens, ducks, geese, and pigeons), guns and powder, carpentry tools, books, a disassembled pinnace and provisions have survived.
Upon reaching the island, the family set up a makeshift camp. William knows that they must prepare for a long time on the island and his thoughts are as much on provisions for the future as for their immediate wants. William and his oldest son Fritz spend the next day exploring the island.
Book Details
Authors

Johann David Wyss
Switzerland
Wyss has been described as an author whose style was "firmly Christian and moral in tone". There are also many underlying tones of Christianity throughout the book and in the case of many of the chara...
Books by Johann David WyssDownload eBooks
Listen/Download Audiobook
Related books

Moorland Cottage by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
The novel "Moorland Cottage" by Elizabeth Gaskell tells a timeless and moving story about the struggles faced by young women in Victorian England. Mag...

Clarissa Harlowe, or the History of a Young Lady - Volume 6 by Samuel Richardson
Clarissa Harlowe is a sprawling epistolary novel that tells the story of a young woman's struggle to maintain her virtue in a world that seems determi...

Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca by Luigi Bertelli
Il giornalino di Gian Burrasca is a novel sited in Tuscany (Italy). It was written by Vamba (Luigi Bertelli’s pseudonym) in 1907 and published in 1912...

Lure of the Dim Trails by B. M. Bower
Phil Thurston, a city-dwelling writer struggling with creative stagnation, finds himself drawn back to the rugged Western landscape of his childhood....

Limbo by Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley's Limbo is a collection of six short stories and a play that explore themes of relationships, social class, marriage, love, family, loss...

Elsie at Nantucket by Martha Finley
Elsie Dinsmore is off on a new adventure, this time to the charming island of Nantucket! In Elsie at Nantucket, the tenth book in the Elsie Dinsmore...

Gardener and The Burden by Rudyard Kipling
The Gardener and The Burden is a poignant and moving novella about the profound impact of loss and the power of memory. Helen Turrell, a woman who has...

The Fatal Three by Mary Elizabeth Braddon
A woman torn between two men, a dark secret, and the fatal consequences of her choices. In Mary Elizabeth Braddon's sensational novel, The Fatal Thre...

Riceyman Steps by Arnold Bennett
Riceyman Steps is a poignant and moving story about the human condition. Set in the gritty streets of London's Clerkenwell district shortly after the...
Reviews for The Swiss Family Robinson
No reviews posted or approved, yet...