Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe was a great hit when it was first published, and it quickly attracted many imitators. Many subsequent works of realistic adventure fiction consciously use Robinsonade episodes to capitalize on Crusoe's popularity. Through imitation authors build up a specific set of conventions to satisfy reader expectations. Establishing these conventions is an important stage in the evolution of the eighteenth-century novel as a respected and clearly identifiable literary genre. Although Schnabel acknowledges the questionable reputation of Crusoe imitations in 1731, Jean-Jacques Rousseau recommends Robinson Crusoe as a work of great educational value in 1762. Writers like Joachim Heinrich Campe, Johann Wyss, and Captain Frederick Marryat use the genre as a vehicle for serious pedagogy. In so doing, they give children's adventure novels a seal of approval and pave the way for more fantastical and sensationalistic works.

I propose the following definition of the Robinsonade: a story or an episode within a story where an individual or group of individuals with limited resources try to survive on a desert island. German critics have spent generations defining the Robinsonade, examining the historical usage of the term, and discussing which books should or should not be included in the genre. There are valid arguments in favor of including a wide variety of survival texts in the genre. There are also arguments both for and against applying the term to texts that were written before the word was even invented.