Moll Flanders (*not her real name); A villain of substance, a victim of fortune and an inevitable penitent

As regular readers will know, I was transported by the book acquisition scooter whilst on a recent trip to Shakespeare & Co in Paris, and quite without intention, ended up buying Daniel Defoe’s classic Moll Flanders. The story of the novel is proclaimed on the first page with the words:

“The
fortunes
and
misfortunes
of the famous
Moll Flanders, & C.

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”.

Thus, the passage of the novel is not so much a revelation of what happens to Moll, as how it happens. Her personality is all-important as is the sharp eye that she casts upon her times. It is a touching, funny and addictive history of bigamy, incest, prostitution and the heavy burden laid upon the soul by a life of crime.

On one level, Daniel Defoe has written a straightforward morality tale. Moll does all sorts of naughty things for decades, miraculously gets away with them and at last is undone by discovery. Within the horrific walls of Newgate, the infamous prison of her birth, she finally repents of her dreadful sins and is able to live a more peaceful life. She is at pains to point out that her repentance is not simply regret at having been caught, but a true transformation. Modern readers have found it extremely difficult to accept her words at face value and this I suspect has more to do with our modernity than Moll’s mores.

That is by no means to say that there is no subtext to such Puritanism. The relish and gusto with which Moll’s adventures are related, the brevity of the moralistic parts of the story and Moll’s own recognition that some readers will prefer to read of the crimes than bask in the moral sunshine of the penitence are all instructive. The subtext is that Moll is quite a girl: a bold, beautiful, self-reliant crusader against poverty; a street wise product of a deeply brutal society; a thoroughly modern miss in desperate pursuit of economic independence; and an extremely amusing narrator to boot. She has many dimensions and much humanity and that is her charm.

Those interested in reading more of Moll may enjoy looking at Stacked, Bookaholic and this splendid piece by Nicola Lacey on the Guardian’s Comment is Free. As you will have gathered, Moll’s is a picturesque tale and has spawned plenty of dramatisations. I have included pictures of Kim Novak, Nicola Walker and the lovely Alex Kingston playing Moll as well as the book cover.