The Swiss Family Robinson (German: Der Schweizerische Robinson, "The Swiss Robinson") is a novel by the Swiss author Johann David Wyss, first published in 1812, about a Swiss family of immigrants whose ship en route to Port Jackson, Australia goes off course and is shipwrecked in the East Indies. The ship's crew is lost, but the family and several domestic animals survive. They make their way to shore, where they build a settlement, undergoing several adventures before being rescued; some refuse rescue and remain on the island.

The book is the most successful of a large number of "Robinsonade" novels that were written in response to the success of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719). It has gone through a large number of versions and adaptations.

History

Written by Swiss writer Johann David Wyss, edited by his son Johann Rudolf Wyss, and illustrated by another son, Johann Emmanuel Wyss, the novel was intended to teach his four sons about family values, good farming, the uses of the natural world, and self-reliance. Wyss's attitude toward its education is in line with the teachings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and many chapters involve Christian-oriented moral lessons such as frugality, husbandry, acceptance, and cooperation.

Wyss presents adventures as lessons in natural history and physical science. This resembles other educational books for young ones published about the same time. These include Charlotte Turner Smith's Rural Walks: in Dialogues intended for the use of Young Persons (1795), Rambles Farther: A continuation of Rural Walks (1796), and A Natural History of Birds, intended chiefly for young persons (1807). But Wyss's novel is also modeled after Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, an adventure story about a shipwrecked sailor first published in 1719.

The first edition was published in two volumes in Zurich in 1812 and 1813 by Orell Füssli under the full title: Der Schweizerische Robinson oder der schiffbrüchige Schweizer-Prediger und seine Familie. and 1827. The continuation introduced a shipwrecked English girl, rescued by one of the boys; he returns to England with her, while the family stays, and the island becomes the colony of “New Switzerland.” also reprinted by Penguin Classics. The better-known title The Swiss Family Robinson was used for the first time in 1818.

Since then, there have been many versions of the story with episodes added, changed, or deleted. Perhaps the best-known English version is by William H. G. Kingston, first published in 1879. Despite this claim, other sources indicate that this edition is based on Montolieu’s 1816 version.

Other English editions that claim to include the whole of the Wyss-Montolieu narrative are by W. H. Davenport Adams (1869–1910) and Mrs. H. B. Paull (1879). As Carpenter and Prichard write in The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature (Oxford, 1995), "with all the expansions and contractions over the past two centuries (this includes a long history of abridgments, condensations, Christianizing, and Disney products), Wyss's original narrative has long since been obscured." (which is, as "Robinson", not a swiss name – however, "Zermatten" is).

Pets

  • Turk () – The family's English dog.
  • Juno () – The family's Danish dog.
  • Grizzle - The family's donkey that is swallowed by a boa constrictor.
  • Beauty and Grace - Two bullfrogs that become pets of the family.
  • Nip (also called Knips or Nips in some editions; called Knips in the German) – An orphan monkey adopted by the family after their dogs Turk and Juno have killed his mother. The family uses him to do taste-testing on poisonous fruits.
  • Fangs () – A jackal that is tamed by the family.
  • Hurricane - An ostrich that is tamed by the family and serves as a mode of transportation.
  • Lightfoot - An onager that is tamed by the family.
  • Parrot - An unnamed parrot that was mentioned to be the family's companion.
  • Storm - An unspecified buffalo that is tamed by the family to pull heavy items.

Other adaptations

The novels, in one form or another, have also been adapted numerous times, sometimes changing location and time period:

Book sequels

  • Le Robinson suisse, ou, Journal d'un père de famille, naufragé avec ses enfants (1824) by Isabelle de Montolieu, new edition of the novel with further adventures.
  • Willis the Pilot: a sequel to The Swiss family Robinson; or, Adventures of an emigrant family wrecked on an unknown coast of the Pacific Ocean (1858) has been attributed to Johann Wyss or to Johanna Spyri, author of Heidi.
  • Second Fatherland (Seconde patrie, 1900), by Jules Verne takes up the story at the point where Wyss's tale left off. It was first published in English in two volumes, Their Island Home and Castaways of the Flag, and later in a single volume as Castaways of the Flag.
  • Return to Robinson Island (2015), by T. J. Hoisington, based on the original 1812 Swiss Family Robinson novel.

Audio adaptations

In 1963, the novel was dramatized by the Tale Spinners for Children series (United Artists Records UAC 11059) performed by the Famous Theatre Company.

Film versions

  • Perils of the Wild (1925 serial film)
  • Swiss Family Robinson (1940 film)
  • Swiss Cheese Family Robinson (Mighty Mouse short, 1947)
  • Swiss Family Robinson (1960 Walt Disney live-action film)
  • Lost in Space (1998, inspired by the 1965–1968 American TV series which was inspired by the book)

Made-for-TV movies

  • Swiss Family Robinson: Lost in the Jungle (1957) — Unaired pilot for a hypothetical series, released in DVD only in 2000.
  • Swiss Family Robinson (1958) — Starring Laraine Day, Walter Pidgeon, Dennis Hopper and Patty Duke.
  • The Swiss Family Robinson (1973) – Animated adaptation.
  • The Swiss Family Robinson (1975) — Pilot to the American series of the same year.
  • Beverly Hills Family Robinson (1998)
  • The New Swiss Family Robinson (1998) — Starring Jane Seymour, James Keach and David Carradine.
  • Stranded (2002)

Television series

  • English Family Robinson (1957) — British series, believed to be lost.
  • Lost in Space (1965–1968) — A science fiction adaptation in which the Robinsons are a family of explorers whose spacecraft goes off course.
  • Festival of Family Classics: "Swiss Family Robinson" (1973) — Episode 14 of the Rankin/Bass animated series.
  • Swiss Family Robinson (1974) — Canadian series starring Chris Wiggins.
  • The Swiss Family Robinson (1975) — American series starring Martin Milner.
  • The Swiss Family Robinson: Flone of the Mysterious Island (1981) — A Japanese anime series.
  • The Jetsons: "The Swiss Family Jetson" (1986) — Episode 22 of the second season of the Hanna-Barbera animated series, modeled after Johann Wyss's book.
  • The Adventures of Swiss Family Robinson (1998) — New Zealand series starring Richard Thomas.
  • Lost in Space (2018–2021) — A Netflix adaptation of the 1965 Lost in Space.
  • Swiss Family Robinson (TBA) — A Disney+ adaptation currently in development.

Direct-to-video films

  • Swiss Family Robinson (1996)

Comic book series

  • Swiss Family Robinson (1947) — Classics Illustrated adaptation of the original novel
  • Space Family Robinson (1962–1984) — science fiction adaptation
  • Swiss Family Mouse n' Sons (c. 1962) — straight adaptation with the Disney characters playing the roles

Stage adaptations

  • Swiss Family Robinson written by Jerry Montoya and performed at B Street Theatre in Sacramento, California, in 2009.

Video game

  • Swiss Family Robinson by Tom Snyder Productions for the Apple II and Commodore 64, published in 1984 under the Windham Classics label. The player takes the role of Fritz, the eldest brother.

Parody

  • The New Swiss Family Robinson by Owen Wister (1882). Harvard Lampoon

See also

  • The Admirable Crichton
  • Cast Away
  • The Coral Island
  • Lost in Space
  • Masterman Ready, or the Wreck of the Pacific
  • Robinson Crusoe

Footnotes

References

  • Wyss, Johann. The Swiss Family Robinson, ed. John Seelye. Penguin Classics, 2007. <!-- The only unabridged complete text genuinely by Wyss (and his son) is currently in print. -->
  • https://books.google.com/books?id=P00OMVWc200C --> Original German text on Google Books

:

Notes

  • "A Note on Wyss's Swiss Family Robinson, Montolieu's Le Robinson suisse, and Kingston's 1879 text", by Ellen Moody. Information about the book and its many versions.

Translations

William Godwin and Mary Jane Clairmont:

  • Volume 1: The Family Robinson Crusoe, or, Journal of a Father Shipwrecked, with His Wife and Children, on an Uninhabited Island, William Godwin and Mary Jane Clairmont
  • Volume 2: The Family Robinson Crusoe, or, Journal of a Father Shipwrecked, with His Wife and Children, on an Uninhabited Island, William Godwin and Mary Jane Clairmont
  • , William Godwin and Mary Jane Clairmont

William Henry Giles Kingston:

  • (plain text). 1879 translation by William Henry Giles Kingston at gutenberg.org
  • https://archive.org/details/swissfamilyrobin00wyss_6 --> The Swiss Family Robinson. 1879 translation by William Henry Giles Kingston at the Internet Archive

Versions unknown

  • The Swiss Family Robinson 1854. Auburn and Buffalo, NY: Miller, Orton & Mulligan at the Internet Archive. "From seventh London edition".
  • The Swiss Family Robinson (search), available at the Internet Archive (public domain scanned books with illustrations)
  • The Swiss Family Robinson (search) at Google Books (public domain scanned books with illustrations)
  • (plain text and HTML). Version unknown, c. 1850, missing two pages of text.