It’s the birthday of Swiss author and folklorist Johann Rudolf Wyss (1782-1830), best known for completing and editing his father’s book, Der schweizerische Robinson (Swiss Family Robinson, 1812-1827), which became one of the most popular novels in history.

Wyss was born in Bern, Switzerland, where his father, Johann David Wyss, was a clergyman at the Cathedral. Johann David had four sons, and Swiss Family Robinson is a novel about a clergyman, his wife, and their four sons being shipwrecked on an island in the East Indies. Johann David’s point in writing the novel was to teach his sons natural history as well as family values, self-reliance, and Christian morality in general. Interestingly, plants and animals from all over the world are constantly being discovered on the island—penguins, kangaroos, boa constrictors, and more, species that have never existed in the same time and place. So there’s that. It all works out splendidly for the family, who are endlessly resourceful.

The novel, which was originally inspired in part by Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe, has been translated and expanded and mucked about with so many times—and additionally made into numerous movies, TV series, and made-for-TV movies—that the popular understanding of the plot may have little to do with the original story. (Disney, for example, added pirates. Because that’s what Disney does.) Evidently the most accurate English version of the novel was done in 1816 by William Godwin, who was, if my memory serves, uptight enough that he probably did a very decent job. This version is still available today. (Go here.)

Fun fact: the family’s name was not Robinson, in spite of every version you’ve ever seen. Rather, the use of “Robinson” in the title was meant to designate the novel as belonging to the Robinsonade genre of castaways on a deserted island. That’s a real genre. I didn’t make it up. I wish I had. Life is a never-ending series of regrets.

Have a fine cold Monday and stay scrupulously honest to the data.