Other editions of book Moll Flanders: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism

Moll Flanders, Defoe's 18th century classic novel, was "marketed" in its day in much the same way that a modern commercial novel might be - its title page promised the racy details of a woman's life spent in thievery and whoredom. The book is much more than this; it is a Puritan tale of sin, repentance, conversion, and redemption. It is also seen by many critics as a satirical and ironic picaresque novel with a twist (that being its female protagonist). On yet another level, it is a playful and beguiling social commentary set between the Puritan age (which saw humankind as fallen) and the Age of Reason in which humankind was seen as born innocent and good and corrupted by society. Taking center stage in this whorl of irony, humor, pathos, and religious faith is one Moll Flanders - both the most plausible sinner and the most pious repentant in English literature; arguably the most notorious heroine in the canon of fiction in the English language. She is as controversial today as when she first appeared in 1722.

The world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it will be hard for a privatehistory to be taken for genuine, where the names and other circumstances of the personare concealed, and on this account we must be content to leave the reader to pass hisown opinion upon the ensuing sheet, and take it just as he pleases. The author is here supposed to be writing her own history, and in the very beginningof her account she gives the reasons why she thinks fit to conceal her true name, afterwhich there is no occasion to say any more about that. It is true that the original of this story is put into new words, and the style of the famous

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (usually known as basically "Moll Flanders") is a novel composed by Daniel Defoe in 1722. Defoe composed this after his work as a writer and pamphleteer. By 1722, Defoe had gotten perceived as a writer, with the accomplishment of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. His political work was tightening now, because of the fall of both Whig and Tory party pioneers with whom he had been related; Robert Walpole was starting his ascent, and Defoe was never completely at home with the Walpole gathering. Defoe's Whig sees are by the by obvious in the tale of Moll, and the novel's full title gives some knowledge into this and the blueprint of the plot: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who Was Born In Newgate, and During a Life of Continu'd Variety For Threescore Years, Besides Her Childhood, Was Twelve Year a Whore, Five 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. Composed from her own Memorandums."