Section 2

_ admirers. Defoe never treats questions of morality with
levity, and he never makes vice seductive. “He would have been shocked at the manner in which the fundamental
2 Among the miscellaneous pamphlets in Defoe’s own library were: A Warning to Servanis, and a Caution to Protestants ; or the case of
Margaret Clark, lately executed for Firing her Master’s House in South- wark, 1680; The Trial and Conviction of Mary Butler, for Counterfeiting
a Bond of £40,000, 1699; and The Trial of Captain John Quelett, 1705.
_ But it was between 1720 and 1730 that the greatest number of lives of
_ criminals—told in the wrong spirit—appeared; and it was in 1722,
e. it will be remembered, that Moll Flanders was published.
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xiv “MOLL FLANDERS
principles of morals are questioned, or excuses offered for flagrant sin, by writers of the present day—generally women —who are the successors, under different circumstances, of the Mrs. Manley and the Mrs. Heywood of Defoe’s time. It is comforting to know that this “pernicious nonsense”—to borrow a phrase from Mr. Punch—is forgotten in a few weeks or months, however much it has been advertised for a season on account of its impropriety; whereas Defoe’s romances will last as long as the English language, and characters like that of Moll Flanders will be types for all time. We may be allowed to regard as apocryphal Borrow’s story of the old applewoman and thief on London Bridge who had made this book her Bible, and who argued that stealing could not be wrong because it was practised by the “Blessed Mary”? Flanders.
Perhaps the best comment upon the spirit in which Defoe wrote this study of a life of crime is furnished by the fact that only twenty-four days after its appearance he published a substantial volume entitled “Religious Courtship: being Historical Discourses on the necessity of marrying Religious Husbands and Wives only. As also of Husbands and Wives being of the same Opinions in Religion with one another.” His enemies, and they were many, did not find any incon- gruity in these works; and there was none, for both were written by a man of genuine religious feeling.
G. T. AITKEN.
The following is a list of Defoe’s works:
New Discovery of Old Intrigue (verse), 1691; Character of Dr. Samue Annesley (verse), 1697; The Pacificator (verse), 1700; True-born Englishman (verse), 1701; The Mock Mourners (verse), 1702; Reforma- tion of Manners (verse), 1702; New Test of Church of England’s Loyalty, 1702; Shortest Way with the Dissenters, 1702; Ode to the Athenian Society, 1703; Enquiry into Asgill’s General Translation, 1703; More Reformation (verse), 1703; Hymn to the Pillory, 1703; The Storm (tale), 1704; Layman’s Sermon on the Late Storm, 1704; The Consolidator; or, Memoirs of Sundry Transactions from the World in the Moon, 1704; Elegy on Author of “True-born Englishman,” 1704; Hymn to Victory, 1704; Giving Alms no Charity, 1704; The Dyet of Poland (verse), 1705; Apparition of Mrs. Veal, 1706; Sermon on the Filling-up of Dr. Burgess’s Meeting-house, 1706; Jure Divino (verse), 1706; Caledonia (verse), 1706; History of the Unionjof Great Britain, 1709; Short Enquiry into a Late Duel, 1713; A General History of Trade, 1713; Wars of Charles XII, 1715; The Family Instructor (two
i
INTRODUCTION XV
eds.), 1715; Hymn to the Mob, 1715; Memoirs of the Church of Scotland, 11717; Life and Death of Count Patkul, 1717; Memoirs of Duke of Shrewsbury, 1718; Memoirs of Daniel Williams, 1718; The Life and Strange STs Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner, 1719; The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1719; The Dumb Philosopher: or, Great Britain’s Wonder, 1719; The King of Pirates (Capt. Avery), 1719; Life of Baron de Goertz, 1719; Life and Adventures of Duncan Campbell, 1720; Mr, Campbell’s Pacquet, 1720; Memoirs of a Cavalier, 1720; Life of Captain Singleton, 1720; Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, 1720; The Supernatural Philosopher: or, The Mysteries of Magick, 1720; Translation of Du Fresnoy’s Compleat Art of Painting (verse), 1720; Moll Flanders, 1722; Journal of the Plague Year, 1722; Due Prepara- tions for the Plague, 1722; Life of Cartouche, 1722; History of Colonel Jacque, 1722; Religious Courtship, 1722; History of Peter the Great, 1723; The Highland Rogue (Rob Roy), 1723; The Fortunate Mistress (Roxana), 1724; Narrative of Murders at Calais, 1724; Life of John Sheppard, 1724; Robberies, Escapes, etc., of John Sheppard, 1724; The Great Law of Subordination: or, The Insolence and Unsufferable Behaviour of Servants in England, 1724; A Tour through Great Britain, 1724-6; New Voyage Round the World, 1725; Account of Jonathan Wild, 1725; Account of John Gow, 1725; Everybody’s Business is Nobody’s Business (on Servants), 1725; The Complete English Trades- man, 1725, vol. ii, 1727; The Friendly Demon, 1726; Mere Nature Delineated (Peter the Wild Boy), 1726; Political History of the Devil, 1726; Essay upon Literature and the Original of Letters, 1726; History of Discoveries, 1726-7; The Protestant Monastery, 1726; A System of Magic, 1726; Parochial Tyranny, 1727; Treatise concerning Use and Abuse of Marriage, 1727; Secrets of Invisible World Discovered: or, History and Reality of Apparitions, 1727, 1728; A New Family Instruc- tor, 1728; Augusta Triumphans, 1728; Plan of English Commerce, 1728; Second Thoughts are Best (on Street Robberies), 1728; Street Robberies Considered, 1728; Humble Proposal to People of England for Increase of Trade, etc., 1729; Preface to R. Dodsley’s Poem ‘‘Servi- tude,’”’ 1729; Effectual Scheme for Preventing Street Robberies, 1731.
Besides the above-named publications a large number of further tracts by Defoe are extant, on matters of, Politics and Church.
) r
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION . 5 5 - : ; cnrervil
AUTHOR’S PREFACE . 3 A & b : I THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES OF THE FAMOUS
MOLL FLANDERS ; ; ; : ; 7
B 837 xvii
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
THE world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it will be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine, where the names and other circumstances. of the person are concealed ; and on this account we must be content to leave the reader to pass his own opinion upon the ensuing sheets, and take it just as he pleases.
The author is here supposed to be writing her own history, and in the very beginning of her account she gives the reasons why she thinks fit to conceal her true name, after which there is no occasion to say any more about that.
It is true that the original of this story is put into new words, and the style of the famous lady we here speak of is a little altered; particularly she is made to tell her own tale in modester words than she told it at first, the copy which came first to hand having been written in language more like one still in Newgate than one grown penitent and humble, as she afterwards pretends to be.
The pen employed in finishing her story, and making it what you now see it to be, has had no little difficulty to put it into a dress fit to be seen, and to make it speak language fit to be read. When a woman debauched from her youth, nay, even being the offspring of debauchery and vice, comes to give an account of all her vicious practices, and even to descend to the particular occasions and circumstances by which she first became wicked, and of all the progressions of crime which she ran through in threescore years, an author must be hard put to it to wrap it up so clean as not to give room, especially for vicious readers, to turn it to his disadvantage.
All possible care, however, has been taken to give no lewd ideas, no immodest turns in the new dressing up this story; no, not to the worst part of her expressions. "To this purpose some of the vicious part of her life, which could not be
I
2 | MOLL FLANDERS
modestly told, is quite left out, and several other parts are very much shortened. What is left ’tis hoped will not offend the chastest reader or the modestest hearer; and as the best use 1s to be made even of the worst story, the moral, ’tis hoped, will keep the reader serious, even where the story might incline him to be otherwise. To give the history of a wicked life repented of, necessarily requires that the wicked part should be made as wicked as the real history of it will bear, to illustrate and give a beauty to the penitent part, which is certainly the best and brightest, if related with equal spirit and life.
It is suggested there cannot be the same life, the same brightness and beauty, in relating the penitent part as in the criminal part. If there is any truth in that suggestion, I must be allowed to say, ’tis because there is not the same taste and relish in the reading ; and indeed it is too true that the difference lies not in the real worth of the subject so much as in the gust and palate of the reader.
But as this work is chiefly recommended to those who know how to read it, and how to make the good uses of it which the story all along recommends to them, so it is to, be hoped that such readers will be much more pleased with the moral than the fable, with the application than with the relation, and with the end of the writer than with the life of the person written of.
There is in this story abundance of delightful incidents, and all of them usefully applied. There is an agreeable turn artfully given them in the relating, that naturally instructs the reader, either one way or another. The first part of her lewd life with the young gentleman at Colchester has so many happy turns given it to expose the crime, and warn all whose circumstances are adapted to it, of the ruinous end of such things, and the foolish, thoughtless, and abhorred conduct of both the parties, that it abundantly atones for all the lively description she gives of her folly and wickedness.
The repentance of her lover at Bath, and how brought by the just alarm of his fit of sickness to abandon her; the just caution given there against even the lawful intimacies of the dearest friends and how unable they are to preserve the most solemn resolutions of virtue without divine assistance; these are parts which, to a just discernment, will appear to have
AUTHOR’S PREFACE 3
‘more real beauty in them than all the amorous chain of story which introduces it.
In a word, as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levity and looseness that was in it, so it is applied, and with the utmost care, to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guilty of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design in publishing it.
The advocates for the stage have, in all ages, made this the great argument to persuade people that their plays are useful, and that they ought to be allowed in the most civilised and in the most religious government ; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes, and that, by the most lively representations, they fail not to recommend virtue and generous principles, and to discourage and expose all sorts of vice and corruption of manners; and were it true that they did so, and that they constantly adhered to that rule, as the test of their acting on the theatre, much might be said in their favour.
Throughout the infinite variety of this book, this funda- | _ mental is most strictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but is first or last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thing men- tioned but it is condemned, even in the ‘relation, nor a virtuous, just thing but it carries its praise along with it. What can more exactly answer the rule laid down, to recom- mend even those representations of things which have so - many other just objections lying against them? namely, of example of bad company, obscene language, and the like.
Upon this foundation this book is recommended to the reader, as a work from every part of which something may be learned, and some just and religious inference is drawn, by which the reader will have something of instruction if he pleases to make use of it. ;
All the exploits of this lady of fame, in her depredations upon mankind, stand as so many warnings to honest people to beware of them, intimating to them by what methods innocent people are drawn in, plundered, and robbed, and by consequence how to avoid them. Her robbing a little
child, dressed fine by the vanity of the mother, to go to the
4 MOLL FLANDERS
dancing-school, is a good memento to such people hereafter, as is likewise her picking the gold watch from the young lady’s side in the park.
Her getting a parcel from a hare-brained wench at the coaches in St. John’s Street; her booty at the fire, and also at Harwich, all give us excellent warning in such cases to be more present to ourselves in sudden surprises of every sort.
Her application to a sober life and industrious management. at last, in Virginia, with her transported spouse, is a story fruitful of instruction to all the unfortunate creatures who are obliged to seek their re-establishment abroad, whether by the misery of transportation or other disaster; letting them know that diligence and application have their due encouragement, even in the remotest part of the world, and that no case can be so low, so despicable, or so empty of prospect, but that an unwearied industry will go a great way to deliver us from it, will in time raise the meanest creature to appear again in the world, and give him a new cast for his life.
These are a few of the serious inferences which we are led by the hand to in this book, and these are fully sufficient to justify any man in recommending it to the world, and much more to justify the publication of it.
There are two of the most beautiful parts still behind, which this story gives some idea of, and lets us into the parts of them, but they are either of them too long to be brought into the same volume, and indeed are, as I may call them, whole volumes of themselves, viz.: 1. The life of her governess, as she calls her, who had run through, it seems, in a few years, all the eminent degrees of a gentlewoman, a whore, and a bawd; a midwife and a midwife-keeper, as they are called; a pawnbroker, a child-taker, a receiyer of thieves, and of stolen goods; and, in a word, herself a thief, a breeder up of thieves, and the like, and yet at last a penitent.
The second is the life of her transported husband, a high- wayman, who, it seems, lived a twelve years’ life of successful villainy upon the road, and even at last came off so well as to be a volunteer transport, not a convict; and in whose life there is an incredible variety.
But, as I said, these are things too long to bring in here, so neither can I make a promise of their coming out by themselves.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE 5
_ We cannot say, indeed, that this history is carried on quite
to the end of the life of the famous Moll Flanders, for nobody can write their own life to the full end of it, unless they can write it after they are dead. But her husband’ s life, being written by a third hand, gives a full account of them both, how long they lived together in that country, and how they came both to England again, after about eight years, in which time they were grown very rich, and where she lived, it seems, to be very old, but was not so extraordinary a penitent as she was at first ; it seems only that indeed she always spoke with abhorrence of her former life, and every part of it.
In her last scene, at Maryland and Virginia, many pleasant things happened, which makes that part of her life very agreeable, but they are not told with the same elegance as those accounted for by herself; so it is still to the more advantage that we break off here.
THE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES
OF THE FAMOUS
MOLL FLANDERS
My true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate, and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is not to be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to this work; perhaps after my death it may be better known; at present it would not be proper, no, not though a general pardon should be issued, even without exceptions of persons or crimes.
It is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades who are out of the way of doing me harm (having gone out of the world by the steps and the string, as I often expected to go), knew me by the name of’ Moll Flanders, so you may give me leave to go under that name till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.
I have been told, that in one of our neighbour nations, whether it be in France or where else I know not, they have an order from the king, that when any criminal is condemned, either to die, or to the galleys, or to be transported, if they leave any children, as such are generally unprovided for, by the forfeiture of their parents, so they are immediately taken into the care of the government, and put into an hospital _ called the House of Orphans, where they are bred up, clothed, fed, taught, and when fit to go out, are placed to trades, or to services, so as to be well able to provide for themselves by an honest, industrious behaviour.