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60 free Robinson Crusoe trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Robinson Crusoe trivia quiz covers Daniel Defoe's 1719 castaway novel from the first voyage out of Hull to the wolves in the Pyrenees. The easy questions handle the basics: who wrote it, how long Crusoe spends on the island, why his companion is called Friday, and the phrase 'Man Friday' the book gave the language. From there it moves through the plot in detail: the Salé pirates, Xury, the Brazilian plantation, the Island of Despair, the too-large canoe, the cannibals and the mutineers. The harder half is for literature buffs: Alexander Selkirk and the rival candidates Pedro Serrano and Henry Pitman, the classmate who may have lent his name, the two sequels, Rousseau's Emile, Stevenson's Ben Gunn, Coetzee's Foe, Ballard's 'inverted Crusoeism', Offenbach's opera and the films from Méliès and Buñuel to Cast Away. If you have played our classic novels or 18th-century literature quizzes, this is the deep dive on one book. Every answer was checked against the novel's encyclopaedia entry before publishing.
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Q 01Who wrote Robinson Crusoe?
Daniel Defoe
It was first published on 25 April 1719 and is often called the first English novel.
Q 02In which year was Robinson Crusoe first published?
1719
It ran through four editions before the year was out.
Q 03How many years does Crusoe spend on his island?
28
He is wrecked on 30 September 1659 and leaves on 19 December 1686.
Q 04Which Scottish castaway is most often cited as the inspiration for Crusoe?
Alexander Selkirk
He spent four years alone on Más a Tierra, in the Juan Fernández Islands off Chile.
Q 05The real castaway's island, Más a Tierra, was renamed Robinson Crusoe Island in which year?
1966
It now belongs to Chile.
Q 06Crusoe's family name is described as coming from what German name?
Kreutznaer
His father, a merchant, wanted him to pursue a career in law.
Q 07From which English port does Crusoe first set sail, in 1651?
Kingston upon Hull
He goes against the wishes of his parents.
Q 08On his second voyage Crusoe is captured and enslaved by pirates from which North African port?
Salé
He escapes two years later in a boat with a boy named Xury.
Q 09Who escapes slavery with Crusoe, only to be sold by him to a Portuguese captain?
Xury
The captain's ship is bound for Brazil, where Crusoe acquires a plantation.
Q 10In which country does Crusoe run a plantation before his fateful voyage?
Brazil
He joins an expedition to buy slaves from Africa, and the ship is wrecked in a storm.
Q 11Crusoe's island lies near the mouth of which South American river?
The Orinoco
He records its latitude as 9 degrees 22 minutes north.
Q 12What name does Crusoe give his new home when he first lands?
The Island of Despair
He observes penguins and seals there.
Q 13Apart from Crusoe, which animals survive the shipwreck?
The captain's dog and two cats
He later adopts a small parrot and raises goats he traps.
How does Crusoe keep track of time on the island?
Q 21On what date does Crusoe leave the island?
19 December 1686
He arrives in England on 11 June 1687 to find his family had believed him dead.
Q 22What final adventure do Crusoe and Friday face on the way home from Lisbon?
Fighting off wolves in the Pyrenees
Crusoe travels overland to avoid the sea.
Q 23The first edition credited whom as the book's author?
Robinson Crusoe himself
Many readers took it for a genuine travelogue.
Notches in a wooden cross
He also reads the Bible and becomes deeply religious.
Q 15Which crops does Crusoe grow on the island?
Barley and rice
He also dries grapes into raisins and learns to make pottery.
Q 16What goes wrong with the first large boat Crusoe builds?
It is too big and too far from the water to launch
He then builds a smaller boat to explore the island's coast.
Q 17Why does Crusoe name his companion Friday?
For the day of the week he appeared
Crusoe teaches him English and converts him to Christianity.
Q 18Crusoe decides he has no right to kill the visiting cannibals for what reason?
They do not knowingly commit a crime
He nonetheless regards cannibalism as a 'national crime' and forbids Friday from practising it.
Q 19Which two prisoners do Crusoe and his companion rescue from the cannibals' feast?
Friday's father and a Spaniard
The Spaniard tells of shipmates stranded on the mainland.
Q 20How does Crusoe finally leave the island?
By helping an English captain retake his ship from mutineers
The mutineers choose to stay on the island rather than hang in England.
Q 24What term was coined for the genre of castaway stories the book inspired?
Robinsonade
The Swiss Family Robinson even borrowed Crusoe's first name for its title.
Q 25Roughly how long is Defoe thought to have taken to write the novel?
Six months or less
Tim Severin called it 'a publishing phenomenon'.
Q 26Who rescued the marooned Scottish sailor Selkirk in 1709?
Woodes Rogers
The rescue led to published accounts of Selkirk's adventures in 1712.
Q 27Per Tim Severin, which castaway surgeon and Monmouth rebel is the likeliest model for Crusoe?
Henry Pitman
Pitman lodged above the shop of the publisher whose son later published Defoe's novel.
Q 28Marooned sailor Pedro Serrano, a possible Crusoe inspiration, survived on what?
Blood and flesh of sea turtles and birds
He was marooned for seven or eight years in the 1520s with no fresh water.
Q 29Which 12th-century Arabic philosophical novel, also set on a desert island, is a possible source?
Hayy ibn Yaqdhan
Ibn Tufail's tale had been translated into Latin and English several times before 1719.
Q 30Defoe's 1719 sequel was titled what?
The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe
A third book, Serious Reflections, followed in 1720.