The Fortunes & Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders &c.
Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety forThreescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, fivetimes a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief,Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv'dHonest, and dies a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums . . .
by Daniel Defoe
THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it willbe hard for a private history to be taken for genuine, where the namesand other circumstances of the person are concealed, and on thisaccount we must be content to leave the reader to pass his own opinionupon the ensuing sheet, and take it just as he pleases.
The author is here supposed to be writing her own history, and in thevery beginning of her account she gives the reasons why she thinks fitto conceal her true name, after which there is no occasion to say anymore about that.
It is true that the original of this story is put into new words, andthe 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 thatshe told it at first, the copy which came first to hand having beenwritten in language more like one still in Newgate than one grownpenitent and humble, as she afterwards pretends to be.
The pen employed in finishing her story, and making it what you now seeit to be, has had no little difficulty to put it into a dress fit to beseen, and to make it speak language fit to be read. When a womandebauched from her youth, nay, even being the offspring of debaucheryand vice, comes to give an account of all her vicious practices, andeven to descend to the particular occasions and circumstances by whichshe ran through in threescore years, an author must be hard put to itwrap it up so clean as not to give room, especially for viciousreaders, to turn it to his disadvantage.
All possible care, however, has been taken to give no lewd ideas, noimmodest turns in the new dressing up of this story; no, not to theworst parts of her expressions. To this purpose some of the viciouspart of her life, which could not be modestly told, is quite left out,and several other parts are very much shortened. What is left 'tishoped will not offend the chastest reader or the modest hearer; and asthe best use is made even of the worst story, the moral 'tis hoped willkeep the reader serious, even where the story might incline him to beotherwise. To give the history of a wicked life repented of,necessarily requires that the wicked part should be make as wicked asthe real history of it will bear, to illustrate and give a beauty tothe penitent part, which is certainly the best and brightest, ifrelated with equal spirit and life.
It is suggested there cannot be the same life, the same brightness andbeauty, in relating the penitent part as is in the criminal part. Ifthere is any truth in that suggestion, I must be allowed to say 'tisbecause there is not the same taste and relish in the reading, andindeed it is too true that the difference lies not in the real worth ofthe 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 readit, and how to make the good uses of it which the story all alongrecommends to them, so it is to be hoped that such readers will be morepleased with the moral than the fable, with the application than withthe relation, and with the end of the writer than with the life of theperson written of.
There is in this story abundance of delightful incidents, and all ofthem usefully applied. There is an agreeable turn artfully given themin the relating, that naturally instructs the reader, either one way orother. The first part of her lewd life with the young gentleman atColchester has so many happy turns given it to expose the crime, andwarn all whose circumstances are adapted to it, of the ruinous end ofsuch things, and the foolish, thoughtless, and abhorred conduct of boththe parties, that it abundantly atones for all the lively descriptionshe gives of her folly and wickedness.
The repentance of her lover at the Bath, and how brought by the justalarm of his fit of sickness to abandon her; the just caution giventhere against even the lawful intimacies of the dearest friends, andhow unable they are to preserve the most solemn resolutions of virtuewithout divine assistance; these are parts which, to a justdiscernment, will appear to have more real beauty in them all theamorous chain of story which introduces it.
In a word, as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levityand looseness that was in it, so it all applied, and with the utmostcare, to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guiltyof manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design inpublishing it.
The advocates for the stage have, in all ages, made this the greatargument to persuade people that their plays are useful, and that theyought to be allowed in the most civilised and in the most religiousgovernment; namely, that they are applied to virtuous purposes, andthat by the most lively representations, they fail not to recommendvirtue and generous principles, and to discourage and expose all sortsof 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 theiracting on the theatre, much might be said in their favour.
Throughout the infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is moststrictly adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it,but is first and last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not asuperlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought toan unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill thingmentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a virtuous,just thing but it carries its praise along with it. What can moreexactly answer the rule laid down, to recommend even thoserepresentations of things which have so many other just objectionsleaving against them? namely, of example, of bad company, obscenelanguage, and the like.
Upon this foundation this book is recommended to the reader as a workfrom every part of which something may be learned, and some just andreligious inference is drawn, by which the reader will have somethingof instruction, if he pleases to make use of it.
All the exploits of this lady of fame, in her depredations uponmankind, 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. Herrobbing a little innocent child, dressed fine by the vanity of themother, to go to the dancing-school, is a good memento to such peoplehereafter, as is likewise her picking the gold watch from the younglady's side in the Park.
Her getting a parcel from a hare-brained wench at the coaches in St.John Street; her booty made at the fire, and again at Harwich, all giveus excellent warnings in such cases to be more present to ourselves insudden surprises of every sort.
Her application to a sober life and industrious management at last inVirginia, with her transported spouse, is a story fruitful ofinstruction to all the unfortunate creatures who are obliged to seektheir re-establishment abroad, whether by the misery of transportationor other disaster; letting them know that diligence and applicationhave their due encouragement, even in the remotest parts 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 fromit, will in time raise the meanest creature to appear again in the world,and give him a new case for his life.
There are a few of the serious inferences which we are led by the handto in this book, and these are fully sufficient to justify any man inrecommending it to the world, and much more to justify the publicationof it.
There are two of the most beautiful parts still behind, which thisstory gives some idea of
, and lets us into the parts of them, but theyare either of them too long to be brought into the same volume, andindeed 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, itseems, in a few years, all the eminent degrees of a gentlewoman, awhore, and a bawd; a midwife and a midwife-keeper, as they are called;a pawnbroker, a childtaker, a receiver of thieves, and of thieves'purchase, that is to say, of stolen goods; and in a word, herself athief, a breeder up of thieves and the like, and yet at last a penitent.
The second is the life of her transported husband, a highwayman, who itseems, 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 aconvict; and in whose life there is an incredible variety.
But, as I have said, these are things too long to bring in here, soneither can I make a promise of the coming out by themselves.
We cannot say, indeed, that this history is carried on quite to