Moll Flanders

ebook

By Daniel Defoe

cover image of Moll Flanders

Sign up to save your library

With an OverDrive account, you can save your favorite libraries for at-a-glance information about availability. Find out more about OverDrive accounts.

   Not today
Libby_app_icon.svg

Find this title in Libby, the library reading app by OverDrive.

app-store-button-en.svg play-store-badge-en.svg
LibbyDevices.png

Search for a digital library with this title

Title found at these libraries:

Loading...

After the success of his 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe, Daniel Defoe wrote Moll Flanders, a novel in the popular "criminal biography" genre which contends for the longest full title in all of literature, being:

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. Written from her own Memorandums.

The upshot of the long-winded title is a plot reveal, though left out is the following: Moll's mother is set to be executed in a British jail, and is released because she's pregnant; mom moves to America, where Moll is left to foster parents, and because she's destitute pretends to be a wealthy widow to try to get men of means to marry her. Awesome plot twists ensue! Defoe's classic brilliantly captures themes of "social mobility, predestination, sin, redemption and reward."

Moll Flanders