Moll Flanders n/e (Oxford World's Classics) - Softcover

Defoe, Daniel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0192805355 ISBN 13: 9780192805355

Publisher: OUP Oxford, 2011

Synopsis

'Twelve Year a Whore, fives times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and died a Penitent'

So the title page of this extraordinary novel describes the career of the woman known as Moll Flanders, whose real name we never discover. And so, in a tour-de-force of writing by the businessman, political satirist, and spy Daniel Defoe, Moll tells her own story, a vivid and racy tale of a woman's experience in the seamy side of life in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England and America. Born in Newgate prison, and seduced in the home of her adoptive family, she learns to live off her wits, defying the traditional depiction of women as helpless victims. First published in 1722, and one of the earliest novels in the English language, its account of opportunism, endurance, and survival speaks as strongly to us today as it did to its original readers.

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About this title

Review

"The brilliance of "Moll Flanders," and of the best of Defoe's other novels, is that they dramatize the uncertainty that goes with the opportunism, and show us a world in which, if you can make yourself, you can lose yourself too." -from the Introduction by John Mullan

The brilliance of "Moll Flanders," and of the best of Defoe s other novels, is that they dramatize the uncertainty that goes with the opportunism, and show us a world in which, if you can make yourself, you can lose yourself too. from the Introduction by John Mullan"

The brilliance of Moll Flanders, and of the best of Defoe s other novels, is that they dramatize the uncertainty that goes with the opportunism, and show us a world in which, if you can make yourself, you can lose yourself too. from the Introduction by John Mullan"

"The brilliance of Moll Flanders, and of the best of Defoe's other novels, is that they dramatize the uncertainty that goes with the opportunism, and show us a world in which, if you can make yourself, you can lose yourself too." -from the Introduction by John Mullan

From the Back Cover

Born to a petty thief in London's notorious Newgate prison and determined to make her way in a rapacious and materialistic society, Moll Flanders recounts the "fortunes and misfortunes" of her turbulent life in this 1722 novel. Though Moll Flanders was shaped by the conventions of criminal biography, Defoe also drew on other literary traditions and his own rich background to create a remarkably original--and still controversial--work.

In addition to a critical introduction and substantial footnotes, this Broadview edition provides a wide range of writings by Defoe as well as contemporary responses to Moll Flanders. Other appendices include a selection of eighteenth-century writings on crime, prisons, and the Virginia colony.

Edition details

• Publisher: OUP Oxford
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0192805355
• ISBN 13: 9780192805355
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 332
• Editor: Starr G. A., Bree Linda