Moll Flanders is one of the best-selling novels of all time. This Norton Critical Edition is again based on the first edition text (1722), the only text known to be Defoe’s own. It is accompanied by detailed explanatory annotations and the editor’s essay outlining the novel’s textual history.

“Contexts” collects related documents on criminal transport, contemporary accounts of lives of crime, and colonial laws as they applied to servants, slaves, and runaways.“Criticism” includes eleven interpretations by Juliet McMaster, Everett Zimmerman, Maximillian E. Novak, Henry Knight Miller, Ian A. Bell, Carol Kay, Paula B. Backscheider, John Rietz, Ann Louise Kibbie, John Richetti, and Ellen Pollak.A Chronology and Selected Bibliography are also included.

Preface

The Text of Moll Flanders

Facsimile title page(1722)

Ther Preface

The History and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &C.

A Textual Problem in Moll Flanders

Contexts

 Daniel Defoe—[Benefits of Transportation]

 [Moll’s Final Years in Ireland]

 The Life of James Mac-Faul, Husband to Moll Flanders, &c.

 Francis Kirkman—[The Counterfeit Lady Unveiled]

 Alexander Smith—[The Golden Farmer, A Murderer and Highway-man]

 [Whitney, A Highway-man]

 [Moll Raby, a House-breaker]

 [Anne Holland, a Pick-pocket]

 [Capt. James Hind, Murderer and Highway-man]

 [Moll Cutpurse, a Pick-pocket and Highwaywoman]

 [Virginia Laws on Servants]

 [Maryland Laws on Servants, Slaves, and Runaways]

Criticism

 Juliet McMaster—The Equation of Love and Money in Moll Flanders

 Everett Zimmerman—Moll Flanders: Parodies of Respectability

 Maximillian E. Novak—“Unweary’d Traveller” and “Indifferent Monitor”: Openness and Complexity in Moll Flanders

 Henry Knight Miller—Some Reflections on Defoe’s Moll Flanders and the Romance Tradition

 Ian A. Bell—Moll Flanders, Crime and Comfort

 Carol Kay—Moll Flanders: Political Woman

 Paula R. Backscheider—The Crime Wave and Moll Flanders

 John Rietz—Criminal Ms-Representation: Moll Flanders and Female Criminal Biography

 Ann Louise Kibbie—[The Birth of Capital in Defoe’s Moll Flanders]

 John Richetti—[Freedom and Necessity, Improvisation and Fate in Moll Flanders]

 Ellen Pollak—Moll Flanders, Incest, and the Structure of Exchange

Daniel Defoe: A Chronology

Selected Bibliography