The Swiss Family Robinson; Or Adventures in a Desert Island
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Reviews
Check the publisher very carefully before you buy "Swiss Family Robinson." One of the versions available, published by General Books LLC, has reviews associated with completely different imprints of the book from genuine publishers.
Be warned that the contents of the version of Swiss Family Robinson published by General Books LLC is completely unedited garbage. Also be warned that when you do the "Look Inside," you're not looking at the General Books LLC version, you're looking at an image of the book from a genuine publisher that actually edits and checks their work. And the reason is....
General Books LLC puts together books using an OCR automated scanning device which misses complete pages. There are numerous Typos and there's no table of contents. There is ABSOLUTELY NO EDITING of any kind done to the book, and the scanning is done by a robot (which the publishers website says can miss pages).
This is all stated on the publishers web site (google them and read - you'll be as stunned as I was when you get all the details). The Almost every review of books published by General Books LLC (around 500,000 of them from one imprint or another now listed on Amazon) by buyers is negative, many are extremely so.
If you have bought the version from General Books LLC by mistake, you can return to Amazon within 30 days(but check Amazon's Return Policy for the details) .
Personally, I always liked Swiss Family Robinson, my one star review is for the General Books LLC version.
While this is a great adventure story it is NOT a great translation, even for free. It is highly abridged.
The story is of a self-reliant family who manages to make the best from the situation when they are ship-wrecked on a South-Pacific island. But the story is less about overcoming true adversity and more about the family cleverly utilizing the implausible wealth of artifacts, flora, and fauna that they manage to find in one location. No challenge or inconvenience arises that cannot be solved by some hard work and another miraculously convenient find. Furthermore, even in the surprisingly abundant surroundings of the family, it seems impossible that they'd have enough time and energy to truly accomplish so many feats to maintain their high standard of living in these difficult surroundings.
I was also disappointed by the additions by another author later in the book. After the initial writing, many others added their own versions of the family's continuing adventures and those from Isabelle de Montolieu are contained in this edition. Her additions contradicted some events earlier written about by Wyss and I found them less interesting.
Still, to a boy (as I was when I first read this long ago), the adventure of being stranded on an island while being able to accomplish nearly anything was captivating. It reminds me games I'd play with my friends as a lad. Not a terribly realistic adventure, but a fun one nonetheless.
I have read this book and i only liked som eparts i didn't really get all of it and the authur didn't really explain it well. But for the most part it was a good book!
In the intervening two centuries since the first _Swiss Family Robinson_ volume was written by Johann Wyss, there have been many different variations of "sequels" and "second halves" written, and many editions that packaged those in different ways.
This particular Kindle edition claims to transcribe the original volume, written by Wyss (a Swiss pastor) and apparently combines it with a version of a "second volume"/sequel written by one Isabelle de Montolieu.
The first volume, written by Wyss himself, is a timeless classic -- a little silly at times and a little fantastic, but still a great story. Every variety of New World plant and animal life is present on their island paradise; nothing bad ever really happens after the initial shipwreck, and the whole first volume is basically a parable on how anyone who has Faith, Reason, and Industry will meet with success in life -- a parable that teaaches the reader a not-insignificant amount of (19th century) natural science along the way. This volume was a favorite of mine as a child and it's still a favorite now on re-read twenty five years later.
The second volume . . .ehh. It's easy to tell the author changed. There's a lot more tension, the various family members meet with real injury and danger for a change, and overall it's closer to an adventure novel than a parable. The problem with it is that this is the volume where the family encounters the, ahem, "savages," and . .well, I'll quote:
"And now, dear father, I think we ought not to call these people savages. They have the simplicity of childhood; a trifle irritates them, a trifle appeases them; they are grateful and affectionate. I find them neither cruel nor barbarous. . .
'We must not, ' said I,'judge all of savage people by these, who have had the benefit of a virtuous teacher. Mr. Willis has already cast into their hearts the seeds of [Christianity]'"
Sooo, the second volume isn't exactly politically correct by modern standards. There are also some pretty severe transcription errors -- for example, a two-page conflict with bears, which I remember from my childhood as one of the high points of the entire book, is absent from this edition.(I notably don't remember the involvement of "savages" at all, and suspect I read a different variant).
So, overall, I give this kindle edition three stars -- lots of great content, but probably not the best version out there. There should, at least, be other free editions of this story available online that include the missing sections, and perhaps at least one edition that doesn't treat of South Sea islanders with such painfully jarring paternalism.