The History of Moll Flanders

The extended title for Daniel Defoe’s novel The History of Moll Flanders (1722) includes a synopsis of the main character’s “Life of continued Variety for threescore Years.” A whore and a thief in England, Flanders is repeatedly imprisoned and whipped, and only avoids a death sentence by traveling as a convict to Virginia, where she prospers. Defoe composed the book as if it were a memoir by Flanders. The title page here, from a circa 1760 edition of the book, includes a woodcut showing Flanders as a rich gentlewoman in Virginia, while in the background she is shown in her previous life, being whipped and facing the hangman’s noose.