Daniel Defoe's bawdy tale of a woman's struggle for independence and redemption,
"Moll Flanders" is edited with an introduction and notes by David Blewett in "P
enguin Classics". Born in Newgate prison and abandoned six months later, Moll Fl
anders' drive to find and hold on to a secure place in society propels her throu
gh incest, adultery, bigamy, prostitution and a resourceful career as a thief ('
the greatest Artist of my time') before her crimes catch up with her, and she is
transported to the colony of Virginia in the New World. If Moll Flanders is on
one level a Puritan's tale of sin and repentance, through self-made, self-relian
t Moll, Daniel Defoe's rich subtext conveys all the paradoxes and amoralities of
the struggle for property and power in the newly individualistic society of Eig
hteenth-century England.
