_Robinson Crusoe_ was their sole life-buoy.
It would be a mistake to suppose that the vitality of _Robinson Crusoe_ is a happy accident, and that others of Defoe's tales have as much claim in point of merit to permanence.

_Robinson Crusoe_ has lived longest, because it lives most, because it was detached as it were from its own time and organized for separate existence.

It is the only one of Defoe's tales that shows what he could do as an artist.

We might have seen from the others that he had the genius of a great artist; here we have the possibility realized, the convincing proof of accomplished work.

_Moll Flanders_ is in some respects superior as a novel.