Lost

I was intrigued by this article from kottke.org on the real Robinson Crusoe,
a Scotsman named Alexander Selkirk, who was actually left behind on an
uninhabited South Pacific island by his unhappy ship captain in 1704.

Daniel Defoe met Selkirk in a English pub in 1711, after Selkirk's return to
civilization, and upon hearing his island stories, Defoe went on to write
"Robinson Crusoe", celebrated as the first novel in the English language.