Books: Model Lives

THE FABULOUS ORIGINALS (317 pp.) Irving Wallace—Knopf ($3.95).

Two British ships hove to off the Pacific islet Más a Tierra, one day in 1709, and prepared to take on fresh water. When the crew glimpsed flashing lights on the supposedly uninhabited island, an armed small boat was sent in to investigate. Awaiting the sailors on the beach, waving his arms and dancing, was an extraordinary figure "cloth'd in Goat-Skins, who look'd wilder than the first Owners of them. He had been [cast away] on the Island Four Years and four Months . . His...