The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
1722
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders
1722
Born in Newgate Prison to a convicted thief, Moll Flanders spends her life clawing her way toward gentility in a world that offers a poor woman no honest means of escape. Over sixty years, she marries five times (once her own brother), turns to thievery for twelve years, and is transported to Virginia. Yet Defoe's 1722 masterpiece is no simple morality tale. It is a radical act of empathy: a portrait of a woman who refuses to accept the limited role society assigns her, who lies and steals and loves with an energy that borders on exhilaration. The novel operates on two levels simultaneously, a propulsive picaresque adventure and a pointed examination of how thoroughly society fails those born without privilege. Moll is no saint, but she is impossible to look away from. She is, in many ways, the first modern heroine: flawed, ambitious, and unapologetically alive.
