Moll Flanders - Daniel Defoe

Moll Flanders By Daniel Defoe The first time I read Moll Flanders I hated it so much that it took me three weeks to finish it, although it's a 400-page novel, more or less. It was a part of my course, then, and I wanted to read it before studying it in class, to be prepared. I saw no use whatsoever in reading about a girl who steals and works in prostitution to make her living. However, when it was explained by the excellent tutor who taught us fiction back then, I started to understand and appreciate it, and I read it two more times. In the eighteenth century England, women used to give money to men just to impregnate them in ...

Full review -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Moll Flanders, the full title is "The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu'd variety for threescore years besides her childhood, was a Whore, five times a wife (whereof once to her own brother) twelve Year a thief, eight year a transported Felon on Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest and died a Penitent) written from her own memorandums." That's quite a title eh?? Published in 1722 when the writer Daniel Defoe was 62 this novel was way ahead of its time. ...

Especially given the sexed-up adaptation that Granada trotted out, 'Moll Flanders' has a racy reputation, sometimes bracketed with straight-out soft-porn as 'Fanny Hill'. There is a lot of off-page sex in the book - you lose count of how many chaps pass Moll's way before the end. and she even marries her long lost brother at one point. Moll is a deeply amoral character who gets involved in thieving and prostitution, and is even at one point tempted to murder a small child for the sake of a necklace it was wearing. Narrating from advanced years, and having allegedly repented her sinful past, Moll's story is a race through seventeenth ...