When, after a year of being alone on his island, Robinson Crusoe sees a footprint in the sand, the reader of Robinson Crusoe trembles. Will Crusoe find another human being to end his loneliness? Is the footprint the sign of an enemy? Since 1719, when Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, thousands of people who enjoy English novels have thrilled to this great adventure story. But few know how the story came to be written. Robinson Crusoe was the first English novel. Its birth brought together the misadventures of a Scotch "failure" and the untapped imagination of an aging English scribbler. Near the end of the Seventeenth Century, the hot-tempered Alexander Selkirk was charged with bad conduct while in church. Rather than face this charge, he ran away to sea. Several years later, Selkirk found himself on the ship of an English privateer. The privateer was preying on Spanish shipping. But Selkirk quarreled bitterly with the Captain. So, when the ship came to the island of Juan Femandez in the South Seas, Selkirk asked to be put ashore. When he saw that there were no people on the island, he begged to be taken back on board. But the Captain refused--Selkirk had gone too far. Over four years later, Selkirk was rescued by another ship. When Selkirk got back to England, the story of his life on the island fired the imagination of Daniel Defoe. Defoe had been earning a living by his pen since he was thirty. He was amazingly hard-working. He wrote a whole newspaper three times a week. He also made part of his living from politics. He supported both political parties. He told each party that it had his sole support. Defoe's morals were weak. But he was a fine writer. He was almost sixty when, in the midst of his work in politics, he wrote Robinson Crusoe. In it, Defoe--said one critic--"forged a story, and forced it on the world for truth." The detail of Crusoe's battle for survival on a lonely island is so vivid that the reader of Robinson Crusoe accepts the product of the author's imagination for reality. Robinson Crusoe became the first of a long line of heroes and heroines that have peopled English novels since Defoe's time.

Based on the article and the following list of answers, write a list of questions.

1. Robinson Crusoe
2. English scribbler
3. Alexander Selkirk
4. Near the end of the Seventeenth Century
5. No
6. bad conduct while in church
7. thirty
8. both
9. No
10. wrote a whole newspaper
11. almost sixty
12. 1719

Numbered questions:
1. What was the first English novel?
2. Who was it based off?
3. Who was charged for being bad in church?
4. When?
5. Did he accept his penatily?
6. What did he do?
7. Defoe has been earning income by writing since what age?
8. Which political party did he support?
9. Was he considered a man with morals?
10. What did he do three times a week?
11. What age did he write Robinson Crusoe?
12. And the year he wrote it?