REAL ANCIENT MARINER.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 24 May 1927, Page 5

REAL ANCIENT MARINER.

ROBINSON CRUSOE’S ISLAND,

AMAZING FIND,

Written nearly three hundred year 3 ago, a thousand letters have been discovered in the beautiful old manor house of Cleeve Priers Worcestershire, revealing adventures as thrilling as any of those in fiction. Recently the occupiers found a tiny, unlit room near the roof which had apparently remained walled up for centuries. In it was an old trunk containing documents written in a quaint and elegant hand, and neatly tied in bundles.

These have been investigated by Mr. John Humphries, the president of the Birmingham Archaeological Society, who found them to be the handiwork of a Captain Thomas Bowry, a veritable Captain Kettle of three centuries ago. Bowry traded with - India and the East, and his letters tell of many exciting exploits with pirates and perils of the sea.

Some are from Daniel Defoe, and they shed light upon the mystery of the real origin of “Robinson Crusoe.” Close by these letters was found an inventory in Bowry’s writing of the island of Juan Fernandez which tallies remarkably with the description of the island given in the opening chapters of “Robinson Crusoe.”

In fact, there is reason to suppose that Bowry put into Defoe’s head the idea of Robinson Crusoe.