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Written in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders" details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe's themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward. This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1721 edition printed by Chetwood in London, the only edition approved by Defoe.… (more)
This is a very dull, tedious book. It has some plot, but it is disorganized and not very compelling. Moll Flanders herself is flat and underdeveloped, and her many marriages and children seem to affect her very minimally, if at all, to a point that makes her seem unrealistic. While my copy of this book was under 300 pages long, it felt 4 times as long. If you have to read this book, take notes and pace yourself, and otherwise there are a lot of better classic novels to choose from. ( )
If you are in the mood for a different type of classic then this is a relatively quick read with a lot going on. I would recommend it to anyone that wants to read the classics because it does belong with that group. ( )
Audiobook on CD. Book written detailing the adventures of Moll Flanders who lives by her wits and her body. Her fortune is made several times by herself, but is lost again, mostly due to her poor choice in men (drunks, womanisers, already married etc). [return][return]Narrative is bawdy, jolly etc. It is both a serious (about a world where a woman can rarely survive on her own and with few rights to even her own money) and not-serious tale (she goes through husbands with almost every chapter). As a result of these dalliances, she has plenty of children, of which little is heard off once they are packed off somewhere else, to ensure that Moll isn't hindered by a flock of children following her. I dont know if a woman would really do this, or whether this is Defoe's "wishful thinking" of fertile women not actually having children in tow. [return][return]Overall an enjoyable lighthearted 18th century romp ( )
Moll Flanders is an authentic portrait of a prostitute but it is not a neutrally objective one. Indeed, it is a relentless evaluation, a judgment. This judgment is pronounced ironically entirely in the terms of the specific kind of realism Defoe chose to employ. The story is not only based on facts; it consists of almost nothing else... Moll Flanders gives the overwhelming and indelible impression that it is modeled on a whore in fact. Its authenticity is not due to the accumulation of elaborately researched detail. It has none of the sensory richness of background and local color we find in Zola’s Nana, although it says essentially the same thing about the profession of whoring. Defoe’s is a classical realism.
added by SnootyBaronet | editSaturday Review of Literature, Kenneth Rexroth
My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consquence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not to be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work; perhaps after my death it may be better known; at present it would not be proper, no, not though a general pardon should be issued, even without exception of persons or crimes.
Quotations
So certainly does interest banish all manner of affection, and so naturally do men give up honour and justice, humanity, and even Christianity, to secure themselves.
Last words
My husband remained there some time after me to settle our affairs, and at first I had intended to go back to him, but at his desire I altered that resolution, and he is come over to England also, where we resolve to spend the remainder of our years in sincere penitence for the wicked lives we have lived.
Written in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe's "Moll Flanders" details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe's themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward. This Modern Library Paperback Classic is set from the 1721 edition printed by Chetwood in London, the only edition approved by Defoe.
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