Desert island Autodidactus" inspired Robert Boyle, an acquaintance of Pococke, to write his own philosophical novel set on a deserted island, "The Aspiring Naturalist". Ibn al-Nafis' "Theologus Autodidactus" was also eventually translated into English in the early 20th century. Published in 1719, Daniel Defoe's novel "Robinson Crusoe" about a castaway on a desert island has spawned so many imitations in film, television and radio that its name was used to define a genre, Robinsonade. The novel features Man Friday, Crusoe's personal assistant. It is likely that Defoe took inspiration for Crusoe from a Scottish sailor named Alexander Selkirk, who was rescued in
Despair (novel) was distributed to the wrong audience. Nabokov would later lament that "Despair" was "a rhinoceros in a world of hummingbirds". Nabokov intended Hermann, and the novel in general, to be kind of a Dostoevskian (who is referred to as "Dusky and Dusty" in the novel) parody; this is even more evident as the original working title for the novel was to be "Zapiski mistifikatora" ("Notes of a Hoaxer"), akin to Dostoevsky's "Notes from Underground". At one particular, Hermann even contemplates titling his narrative "The Double", before he realizes it has been used, and opts for "Despair" instead. Nabokov infamously despised