The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders

This moral comedy of low life set in the reign of Charles II, and probably suggested to the author's imagination by the story of some real criminal whom he met in Newgate, the 'Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders' - how she was five times a wife, twelve years a thief, eight years a transported felon, 'at last grew rich, and died a penitent' - are told with that directness of narrative and reality of incident in which Defoe has never been equalled. Moll herself has incurred the righteous censure of many generations yet she still has the power to pickpocket our affections. She give us, as Mr. E. M. Forster wrote, 'the thrill that proceeds from a living being. She moves us as having height and weight, as breathing and eating, and doing many of the things which are usually left out.'