Daniel Defoe

Anonymity A Secret History of English Literature John Mullan Princeton University Press: 374 pp., $22.95 Author interviews and signing tours have become a chief element in bookselling. If not by their covers, today's books are known by their jacket...

THE SHOW " Crusoe" WHEN|WHERE Tonight at 8 on NBC/4; subsequent Fridays at 9 p.m. REASON TO WATCH Nice special effects, lots of action. WHAT IT'S ABOUT Do you know how many film adaptations of "Robinson Crusoe" were shot over the past century? Ten, 12?...

It's not quite fair to say that the treehouse is the star of “ Crusoe,” a 13-week NBC series that takes off from, but does not strictly speaking adapt, Daniel Defoe's "The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe of York,...

With cable news going 24/7 on election coverage, it would seem that biographies of the two presidential candidates have long since been told and retold. But the 27th season premiere of " Frontline" (CPTV, Tuesday, 9 p.m.) digs a big deeper to uncover...

Back in the day, sailing to America could be traumatic stuff—when, that is, it wasn't incredibly dull. Anything might go wrong, and frequently did. There were enemy warships, hurricanes and, not least, the delights of dysentery (or "the bloody flux,...

Edward Anderson had a strange and sad career. He was born in Texas in 1905 and grew up in Oklahoma, serving his apprenticeship as a journalist on a small paper in Ardmore, Okla. Restless, he worked as a deckhand on a freighter, plied his fists as a...

Sam Neill, who recently starred in Showtime's "The Tudors," will take on another period piece in his next TV gig. Neill, along with Sean Bean ("The Lord of the Rings") and Joss Ackland ("White Mischief"), have joined the cast of NBC's drama "Crusoe," a...

Alicia Silverstone is going to play a mother on TV. Just not that one. Silverstone, who was courted for a recurring role on CBS' "How I Met Your Mother" earlier this season, has taken the lead role in ABC's comedy pilot "Bad Mother's Handbook." NBC,...

There are few more cherished American ideals than independence. As we prepare to celebrate Tartan Day, established as April 6 by a U.S. Senate resolution in 1998 to commemorate one of the inspirations for the Declaration of Independence -- Scotland's...

"Friday Night Lights" is coming back, "The Office" is spinning off and NBC is going to try to have mostly original programming all year round. Those are some of the highlights from what NBC is calling its "in front" (rather than upfront) schedule...

'The Normal Heart" may be the angriest AIDS art ever. In it, Larry Kramer ferociously indicts the forces that kept the city, the country, the press and even the gay community from confronting a horrible, mysterious new disease. It had its premiere at...

The best-known castaways — Tom Hanks and his volleyball, for example, and Robinson Crusoe — come from the world of make-believe. One way to tolerate the idea of enduring years without human contact, apparently, is to fictionalize it. Daniel...