'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. ABOUT
THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made
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