Robinson (novel)

Robinson is the second novel by Muriel Spark, first published by Macmillan in 1958 and in the US by Lippincott, and is unusual within her body of work in being written in the first person.

[1] The novel is set in 1954 and begins with 29 people on a plane bound for Azores and then Lisbon that crashes on a remote island in the North Atlantic, killing all the crew and most of the passengers.

The narrator, January Marlow, and two other survivors, are nursed by Robinson, a mysterious loner already in residence on the island.

[3] It can also be seen in relation to its immediate predecessor, Lord of the Flies (1954), in considering civilisation from the vantage point of a setting where customary rules break down.

[6][7][8] However, a recent study has argued that Robinson is more of an achievement, and 'artfully reflects the diminishment of postwar Britain's national imperial status'.