The Voyage De Groenland

Abstract

According to van Wijngaarden,¹ Tyssot’s second novel enjoyed a great success in its day. However, he gave no evidence for this statement and I have been unable to find any, unless the ease with which copies may be obtained (see Appendix G) is an indication that it was once popular. It is just as likely, of course, that the publisher was optimistic. There was only one French edition ² and whatever attention it attracted probably resulted from the sudden and widespread demand for desert island literature occasioned by the enormous popularity of Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe which was first published in 1719 and immediately translated into French and Dutch and, in the following year, into German. Tyssot’s novel was published in 1720 and was translated into German in 1721.³ According to Briiggeman,⁴ the title of the German edition was originally intended to be Reise um den Nordpol… but this was hastily changed to Des Robinson Crusoe Dritter und Vierter Theil… Perhaps this catch-penny title caused some demand for the novel in Germany ⁵ although copies are now hard to find (see Appendix G). No author’s name appeared on the title-page but Tyssot did sign the dedicatory epistle of the French edition in which he offered the conventional denial of authorship.⁶ However, it was not until the end of the nineteenth century, as a result of studies of Defoe, that Tyssot was generally recognized as the author.