The final work of Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe
Roxana(1724) was Defoe's last novel. It is a fascinating work, simultaneously strange and tragic, which dramatizes the moral deterioration and degradation of its complex heroine. Mlle Beleau, or Roxana as she becomes known, enters upon a career as a courtesan. She passes from one protector to another in England, France and Holland and amasses much wealth. But she is fatally torn between the dull virtue of middle-class respectability and the evil attractions of the beckoning city lights.

The only one of...

The original tale of a castaway struggling to survive on a remote desert island, and one of the first novels in English

The sole survivor of a shipwreck, Robinson Crusoe is washed up on a desert island. In his journal he chronicles his daily battle to stay alive, as he conquers isolation, fashions shelter and clothes, enlists the help of a native islander who he names 'Friday', and fights off cannibals and mutineers. Written in an age of exploration and enterprise, it has been variously interpreted as an embodiment of British imperialist values, as a portrayal of 'natural man', or...

Defoe's account of the bubonic plague that swept London in 1665 remains as vivid as it is harrowing. Based on Defoe's own childhood memories and prodigious research, A Journal of the Plague Year walks the line between fiction, history, and reportage. In meticulous and unsentimental detail it renders the daily life of a city under siege; the often gruesome medical precautions and practices of the time; the mass panics of a frightened citizenry; and the solitary travails of Defoe's narrator, a man who decides to remain in the city through it all, chronicling the course of events with an...

Written in a time when criminal biographies enjoyed great success, Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders details the life of the irresistible Moll and her struggles through poverty and sin in search of property and power. Born in Newgate Prison to a picaresque mother, Moll propels herself through marriages, periods of success and destitution, and a trip to the New World and back, only to return to the place of her birth as a popular prostitute and brilliant thief. The story of Moll Flanders vividly illustrates Defoe's themes of social mobility and predestination, sin, redemption and reward....

"Backgrounds" encourages comparison of 1665 documents with those of the early 1720s, when England feared a new outbreak of the plague Included are official government orders and newspaper accounts as well as writings by Defoe, John Graunt, the College of Physicians, and others "Contexts" includes eight comparative pieces united by the theme of a community in crisis From Thucydides to Boccaccio to modern accounts by Albert Camus, Michel Foucault, and Susan Sontag, this collection represents some of the most celebrated observers and critics in western civilization who have seen what plagues...

"Contexts" helps the reader understand the novel's historical and religious significance. Included are four contemporary accounts of marooned men, Defoe's autobiographical passages on the novel's allegorical foundation, and aspects of the Puritan emblematic tradition essential for understanding the novel's religious aspects "Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Opinions" is a comprehensive study of early estimations by prominent literary and political figures, including Alexander Pope, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Samuel Johnson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, Edgar Allen Poe, Thomas...

This book contains Daniel Defoe s seminal 1722 novel, "The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders." It purports to be a factual account of Moll Flanders s life from birth until death, and recounts the experiences of a woman who, in her life of but thirty years, 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." This volume would constitute a worthy addition to any bookshelf, and it is highly recommended for fans and collectors of...

This volume presents seven short stories of pirates and robbers, all published originally during the busy years in which Defoe's work as a novelist was done. They were, no doubt, thrown off in haste by a busy writer, and they do not rank with his masterpieces; yet they exhibit the same powers, and they deserve to be known. Contents: Introduction The King of Pirates: Captain Avery The Cartoucheans in France The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard A Narrative of All the Robberies, Escapes, &c., of John Sheppard The Life and Actions of Jonathan Wild The Adventures of Captain John Gow...