Daniel Defoes 1722 novel, Moll Flanders, remains a fascinating imaginative work, and is in many ways more interesting than his famous first effort, Robinson Crusoe. Having seen bits of two recent film adaptations in the last couple of months on television, and being a budding 18th century scholar, I decided it was time I picked up my own copy of Moll Flanders and see the actual product on its own terms. A story no less about a castaway and delinquent than Crusoe, in Moll Flanders, Defoe attempts to set down the history of a woman with a wild and often desperate life. A character of infinitely more interiority and reflection than Crusoe, Moll gives us through a first person narrative, a look into various stations of life in 18th century England and America.
