<i>Robinson Crusoe</i> Portrait Frontispieces: Models, Variants, and Interpretations, 1719–1799

The portrait frontispiece issued in 1719 with William Taylor’s first edition of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe defined British visualizations of the novel and its titular character for the rest of the century, but not all subsequent portrait frontispieces were the same. This article reads frontispieces as a visual prolepsis that can guide a reader’s understanding of a work and, therefore, as important to understanding the reception history of Robinson Crusoe. It offers the first systematic and comprehensive study of portrait frontispieces issued throughout the eighteenth century, whether in full-length editions, abridgments, or chapbooks, by identifying four frontispiece prototypes and following their successive re-uses and variations. It demonstrates that not all portrait frontispieces shaped and characterized the novel in the same way, and it explores how booksellers, engravers, and readers could reinscribe a frontispiece’s meaning, offering fresh interpretations of preexisting designs and shaping readerly consumption the work. An appendix provides a listing of eighteenth-century editions grouped by frontispiece designs.