This article is about the translation of Robinson Crusoë by Daniel Defoe, which is, after the Bible, one of the most translated works in history. The novel has been translated into 27 languages, according to a bibliography of Ulrich Hermann. How can we explain the success of the work and the phenomenon of re-writing the novel? The book is badly written, and the story is full of moralistic reflections. Moreover, since its partition in 1719, Robinson’s text has known a lot of strange adventures: it has been questioned, corrected, actualised, reconstructed, transformed, etc. Three translations are discussed and compared in this article.