Members of Conservatives Abroad France attended their first literary event at Le Petit Victor Hugo restaurant in Paris last night to listen to their host and speaker Raf Pittman talk on Daniel Defoe and the 'Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe' published in 1719.
The story has enjoyed global appeal since its publication at the ‘Sign of the Ship’ in Paternoster Square in the City for its vivid description of a sailor shipwrecked and marooned on a desert island.
Defoe was a dissenter opposed to the Anglican church and his pamphlets fuelled opposition to King James II who was forced into exile in France where he is buried at St Germain en Laye in the Paris suburbs. His message was that order and an environment for prosperity can exist outside formal government and rule by monarchs provided you believe in God.
Raf described how Defoe had borrowed the plot from the real life story of Dr Henry Pitman who found himself marooned on an island after escaping penal servitude in Barbados in 1685. On his return to London he lodged at the premises of John Taylor printers at the ‘Sign of the Ship’ and published his own Strange Adventures that Defoe purloined to make his own story. Both publications are entered at Stationers Hall under the name of the printer Defoe remaining anonymous to convince his readers he was Robinson Crusoe, a real life story, compared to Henry Pitman who published under his own name.
Books were becoming accessible to everyone and Robinson Crusoe was on the shelf alongside the Bible and William Shakespeare such was the appeal of tales of travel to far-off lands and adventure. Defoe was in the habit of inventing even his own name he changed from Foe so no problem pretending to be Henry Pitman, after all the King was a pretender and that was Gods will he would have argued.
Raf Pittman is Conservatives Abroad Representative for France and an author, writer and printmaker, a member of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper makers. He has recently broadcast on BBC Radio and contributed to a new BBC documentary on the Dover Blockade.
Theirs is every likelihood Raf is related to Henry as his ancestors lived in neighbouring villages on the Dorset-Somerset border. Raf is qualified to guide in the City of London and is a registered South East England Blue Badge guide. More information on this story can be found HERE.
