I would apologize for taking so much time on a nine-page hoax did it not
offer something positive in the history of English literature. It has
long been recognized as one of the more than possible sources of Defoe's
"Robinson Crusoe." It is truly said that the elements of a masterpiece
exist for years before they become embodied, that they are floating in
the air, as it were, awaiting the master workman who can make that
use which gives to them permanent interest Life on an island, entirely
separated from the rest of mankind, had formed an incident in many
tales, but Neville's is believed to have been the first employment by
an English author of island life for the whole story. And while Defoe
excludes the most important feature of Neville's tract--woman--from his
"Robinson Crusoe," issued in April, 1719, he too, four months after,
published the "Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe," in which
woman has a share. It would be wearisome to undertake a comparison of
incident; suffice it to say that the "Isle of Pines" has been accepted
as a pre-Defoe romance, to which the far greater Englishman may have
been indebted. [49]
[51]