The Castaway’s Tale

In 1729, a remarkable book appeared in London. The author, Robert Drury, took up residence at Old Tom's coffeehouse in the center of the city, welcoming the curious to hear his incredible tale: a voyage to Asia on an East India ship, floundering off the coast of Madagascar and, at just fourteen years of age, how Drury became enslaved on that island for the next decade and a half before a miraculous return to England.

But did Drury actually write the book that bore his name? Or was it an invention from none other than Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, the famous but fictionalized castaway story based on true events? Or was Drury's story real and was Defoe, unnamed and unattributed, the man who put the book together based on what Drury told him?

Drawing from newly available archival material, this work tells the full story of Robert Drury, Daniel Defoe, and the connection between them, piecing together the puzzle of their potential collaboration and presenting a fuller biography of Drury than previously available. The result is a story as full of twists and turns as Drury's own.