An island paradise, 19 Aug 2008
We all know about Robinson Crusoe, or at least we think we do. We know about the shipwreck and the years alone on the island and the footprint in the sand and "Man Friday".

Reading the book for the first time, after years of receiving it via the TV and the cinema, in heavily abridged or heavily revised versions, I was amazed to discover how much more there is to find.

The first joy is Defoe's prose, written with all the urgency and precision of a lifelong pamphleteer. Defoe never leaves any doubt as to what his character is trying to say or why he is trying to say it.
The second joy is the pacing. In the brief sections before and after his time on the island, Crusoe undergoes multiple shipwrecks, capture by pirates, escape from slavery, the life of a Brazilian plantation owner, the putting down of a mutiny and even an attack by wolves. Any one of these events could serve quite happily as the climax of another story. As it is, the only time the pace slows is during Crusoe's sojourn on the island and that is only appropriate to his condition.

The greatest joy of the book, though, is Crusoe himself. This is a very real character with very real failings. He is frequently arrogant, unthinking or even plain stupid but wins us over with the good grace with which he admits his faults. One minute he is praising the quality of his newly baked pots, the next laughing at himself for spending months on building a canoe too large and too far from shore for him ever to be able to drag it to the sea. All the while he struggles to give some meaning to his isolation, a meaning he chooses to find in his own vision of God (a God that, by remarkable coincidence, exactly mirrors Defoe's own, nonconformist vision of his Almighty). It's not an endeavour of which Richard Dawkins - or indeed I - would necessarily approve but it's certainly one appropriate to Crusoe's time and personality.

Robinson Crusoe has been analysed as a prototypical text of British imperialism, a moral text, a religious text and even a Marxist text. It has drawn the attention of Rousseau, Wilkie Collins, Coetzee and Joyce among thousands of others. Having read it, one suddenly sees why. The only thing it lacks is the wonderful theme music from the 1960s TV series.


Lengthy, but worth it, 25 Jun 2008
The original Robinson Crusoe story is said to have been told by an old sailor in a dark bar in Bristol, and said to be his own. Daniel Defoe heard closely and used it to inspire his novel. Modern authors (like French Le Clezio) made their versions a lot shorter, simpler, well, for kids. Defoe's work is of another dimension, much closer to reality.

Part Ray Mears Bush Craft, Part Religious Meditation, 14 Nov 2007
Acknowledged to be one of (if not the) first novel, the unexpurgated version of Robinson Crusoe is nothing like the childrens' book that most people grow up with. For starters, the vast majority of pages in the Penguin version are about the practicalities of living alone on a deserted island, including details accounts of catching, enclosing and raising goats, planting crops and strengthening his shelters. As other reviewers have said, this does become repetitive and it's not helped that Defoe interserpeses it with paragraphs wherein Robinson considers the nature of God and the road to salvation. Yes, Crusoe does become a more devout Christian as a result of staying on the island, but it's telling that this starts because of a terror that he's about to die and what will happen to him when he does.

The book begins with an account of Crusoe's upbringing, his determination to go to sea in the face of parental objection and a disastrous voyage that sees him sold into slavery. On his escape (helped by a fellow slave who Crusoe in turn sells into slavery!), he's rescued by a Portugese captain and taken to Brazil where he starts a plantation before his wanderlust takes hold again and he embarks on a voyage to buy slaves in Guinea, a voyage that ends in the shipwreck that leaves him stuck on an island for 28 years.

The casual attitude towards slavery may make modern readers uncomfortable. I was certainly shocked by the way Crusoe on several occassions wishes he had some slaves to work for him and his relationship with Friday is certainly one of benevolent white man bringing God to the savage.

The plot only really gets going in the final 80 pages when Defore introduces cannibals and deserters and has Crusoe engage in two daring rescues. Even now these sections are entertaining and the action really gathers speed as we follow Crusoe's deliverance back to civilisation and ending with a peculiar almost postscript of what happens when he decides to travel by land instead of sea and is attacked by ravenous wolves.

The novel is definitely worth a look, but will likely be unpalatable to some modern readers because of the extensive (and somewhat unconvincing) religious meditations.

Traditional and factual. Hard to complete comapared to modern novels, 24 Jun 2007
Robinson Crusoe is claimed to be one of the first novel's written in English (1719) and is a fictional autobiography of a man who is from a very average family in England at that time. The story moves from the main characters moving out of his family home and travelling the seas to his eventual shipwreck off the American coast.

I read this book over an extended period of time due to exams in School but also because they book is very laborious with a completely different style of writing to contemporary writers. At times it is written very factually that reminded me of a non-fiction book such as the treatment of certain animals and how to tame them.

For looking into how literature started and an abstract insight into general life in these times, the first part of the book, the story can be of relevance and provide enough stimulation to finish. Also as many reviewers have mentioned before the novel is also allegorical with the classic shipwrecked story on one level and the deep insight into humanity and how humans behave on the other. Despite some believing that this second level of thought provides more entertainment to the story and makes the book worth reading I personally did not find that stimulating.

However despite its downfalls I still believe Robinson Crusoe to be worth reading for its literature value (as in what the book did for literature, moving it along etc), but it also captures the practical issues with being stuck on a desert island very well. If looking for a page-turner I wouldn't advise this book but the storyline is still appealing.


Other links: Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel: The further adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Film: Castaway


Open your eyes., 14 Oct 2006
Just a quickie. Some of the above reviews remind us of how slow and boring this book can be and how repetitive. Well, guys, that's the point. How exciting do you suppose being stranded alone on an Island can be? What would you do to pass the time? Defoe takes us back to a time before T.V etc. Your day would be boring, although eventually menial tasks save ones sanity. Time does pass slowly as it looses relavance. It's not a classic for nothing.

An island paradise, 19 Aug 2008
We all know about Robinson Crusoe, or at least we think we do. We know about the shipwreck and the years alone on the island and the footprint in the sand and "Man Friday".

Reading the book for the first time, after years of receiving it via the TV and the cinema, in heavily abridged or heavily revised versions, I was amazed to discover how much more there is to find.

The first joy is Defoe's prose, written with all the urgency and precision of a lifelong pamphleteer. Defoe never leaves any doubt as to what his character is trying to say or why he is trying to say it.
The second joy is the pacing. In the brief sections before and after his time on the island, Crusoe undergoes multiple shipwrecks, capture by pirates, escape from slavery, the life of a Brazilian plantation owner, the putting down of a mutiny and even an attack by wolves. Any one of these events could serve quite happily as the climax of another story. As it is, the only time the pace slows is during Crusoe's sojourn on the island and that is only appropriate to his condition.

The greatest joy of the book, though, is Crusoe himself. This is a very real character with very real failings. He is frequently arrogant, unthinking or even plain stupid but wins us over with the good grace with which he admits his faults. One minute he is praising the quality of his newly baked pots, the next laughing at himself for spending months on building a canoe too large and too far from shore for him ever to be able to drag it to the sea. All the while he struggles to give some meaning to his isolation, a meaning he chooses to find in his own vision of God (a God that, by remarkable coincidence, exactly mirrors Defoe's own, nonconformist vision of his Almighty). It's not an endeavour of which Richard Dawkins - or indeed I - would necessarily approve but it's certainly one appropriate to Crusoe's time and personality.

Robinson Crusoe has been analysed as a prototypical text of British imperialism, a moral text, a religious text and even a Marxist text. It has drawn the attention of Rousseau, Wilkie Collins, Coetzee and Joyce among thousands of others. Having read it, one suddenly sees why. The only thing it lacks is the wonderful theme music from the 1960s TV series.


Lengthy, but worth it, 25 Jun 2008
The original Robinson Crusoe story is said to have been told by an old sailor in a dark bar in Bristol, and said to be his own. Daniel Defoe heard closely and used it to inspire his novel. Modern authors (like French Le Clezio) made their versions a lot shorter, simpler, well, for kids. Defoe's work is of another dimension, much closer to reality.

Part Ray Mears Bush Craft, Part Religious Meditation, 14 Nov 2007
Acknowledged to be one of (if not the) first novel, the unexpurgated version of Robinson Crusoe is nothing like the childrens' book that most people grow up with. For starters, the vast majority of pages in the Penguin version are about the practicalities of living alone on a deserted island, including details accounts of catching, enclosing and raising goats, planting crops and strengthening his shelters. As other reviewers have said, this does become repetitive and it's not helped that Defoe interserpeses it with paragraphs wherein Robinson considers the nature of God and the road to salvation. Yes, Crusoe does become a more devout Christian as a result of staying on the island, but it's telling that this starts because of a terror that he's about to die and what will happen to him when he does.

The book begins with an account of Crusoe's upbringing, his determination to go to sea in the face of parental objection and a disastrous voyage that sees him sold into slavery. On his escape (helped by a fellow slave who Crusoe in turn sells into slavery!), he's rescued by a Portugese captain and taken to Brazil where he starts a plantation before his wanderlust takes hold again and he embarks on a voyage to buy slaves in Guinea, a voyage that ends in the shipwreck that leaves him stuck on an island for 28 years.

The casual attitude towards slavery may make modern readers uncomfortable. I was certainly shocked by the way Crusoe on several occassions wishes he had some slaves to work for him and his relationship with Friday is certainly one of benevolent white man bringing God to the savage.

The plot only really gets going in the final 80 pages when Defore introduces cannibals and deserters and has Crusoe engage in two daring rescues. Even now these sections are entertaining and the action really gathers speed as we follow Crusoe's deliverance back to civilisation and ending with a peculiar almost postscript of what happens when he decides to travel by land instead of sea and is attacked by ravenous wolves.

The novel is definitely worth a look, but will likely be unpalatable to some modern readers because of the extensive (and somewhat unconvincing) religious meditations.

Traditional and factual. Hard to complete comapared to modern novels, 24 Jun 2007
Robinson Crusoe is claimed to be one of the first novel's written in English (1719) and is a fictional autobiography of a man who is from a very average family in England at that time. The story moves from the main characters moving out of his family home and travelling the seas to his eventual shipwreck off the American coast.

I read this book over an extended period of time due to exams in School but also because they book is very laborious with a completely different style of writing to contemporary writers. At times it is written very factually that reminded me of a non-fiction book such as the treatment of certain animals and how to tame them.

For looking into how literature started and an abstract insight into general life in these times, the first part of the book, the story can be of relevance and provide enough stimulation to finish. Also as many reviewers have mentioned before the novel is also allegorical with the classic shipwrecked story on one level and the deep insight into humanity and how humans behave on the other. Despite some believing that this second level of thought provides more entertainment to the story and makes the book worth reading I personally did not find that stimulating.

However despite its downfalls I still believe Robinson Crusoe to be worth reading for its literature value (as in what the book did for literature, moving it along etc), but it also captures the practical issues with being stuck on a desert island very well. If looking for a page-turner I wouldn't advise this book but the storyline is still appealing.


Other links: Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel: The further adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Film: Castaway


Open your eyes., 14 Oct 2006
Just a quickie. Some of the above reviews remind us of how slow and boring this book can be and how repetitive. Well, guys, that's the point. How exciting do you suppose being stranded alone on an Island can be? What would you do to pass the time? Defoe takes us back to a time before T.V etc. Your day would be boring, although eventually menial tasks save ones sanity. Time does pass slowly as it looses relavance. It's not a classic for nothing.

Beyond Imagination, 14 Dec 2007
Imagine every other person in your social circle, family, friends, workplace and high street dropping dead. This was the reality of the Black Death, at least in the more crowded settlements. A tragedy beyond imagination that Defoe brings alive.

It's not the mortality that grips you, catastrophic as they were, but how people, even close relatives, shunned each other because of the near-certainty of contracting the disease and ending up dead themselves.

It's probably my duty to highlight, too, that the Black Death was almost certainly not bubonic plague as it doesn't fit the facts of how the disease spread, but hemorrhagic fever. One of the key pieces of evidence is the outbreak of plague in Iceland, which is known not to harbour a rat population at that time.

Rivetting factual account, 30 Jun 2002
A Journal of the Plague Year argues its case better by a bald statement of facts, than by any elaborate literary devices. This reads like it is meant to be, a journal, bringing home the horrors of that awful time in a way that a second-hand description could never do.
Having said that, this account IS second-hand; it is only Defoe's journalistic expertise, boyhood memories and down-to-earth style that make it so believable.

BUT - anyone who reads this should not expect another Gulliver's Travels - it IS heavy going; it's not a book that one can curl up with & relax, you have to work for your entertainment.

The main point that comes across is the constant religious undercurrent, which was, I guess, typical of the time (if not of Defoe) and the willingness to attach blame for anything unusual to outsiders, or God's will, rather than examine their own circumstances (so what's changed in 337 years!?). As one of the few records of that terrible year, this deserves a place on any amateur historian's bookshelf.

Dark, gripping, and sad story based on a truthful account., 10 Jun 2000
If you skip the depressing death bills, this story will grip you and won't let you go until the end. If you are a history major this story will give you insight into 1660's. Be it human nature, government setup, society setup, etc. A must read!

Fascinating 17th Century Docu-Soap account of the Plague., 28 Apr 2000
I was interested in this book because it promised an account by one who was there and not by student historians who make a living by guessing our past. The gripping eye-witness descriptions make up for the often tedious death toll listings which, once you've read one are best skipped over. A symapthetic view - not too dark.

Interesting and at times quite grisly, 07 Aug 1999
What I like best about DeFoe is that he is very readable and can hold your attention for hours. Sure, he can contradict himself at times and he does have a flair for repetition and while he is not above pointing out the obvious, DeFoe is extremely interesting. "A Journal of the Plague Year" contains all the things DeFoe is noted for including a sharp eye for detail and sly humour. I liked this book and recommend it mainly because much of what DeFoe observed about human nature in the early 18th century is still relevant today.

An island paradise, 19 Aug 2008
We all know about Robinson Crusoe, or at least we think we do. We know about the shipwreck and the years alone on the island and the footprint in the sand and "Man Friday".

Reading the book for the first time, after years of receiving it via the TV and the cinema, in heavily abridged or heavily revised versions, I was amazed to discover how much more there is to find.

The first joy is Defoe's prose, written with all the urgency and precision of a lifelong pamphleteer. Defoe never leaves any doubt as to what his character is trying to say or why he is trying to say it.
The second joy is the pacing. In the brief sections before and after his time on the island, Crusoe undergoes multiple shipwrecks, capture by pirates, escape from slavery, the life of a Brazilian plantation owner, the putting down of a mutiny and even an attack by wolves. Any one of these events could serve quite happily as the climax of another story. As it is, the only time the pace slows is during Crusoe's sojourn on the island and that is only appropriate to his condition.

The greatest joy of the book, though, is Crusoe himself. This is a very real character with very real failings. He is frequently arrogant, unthinking or even plain stupid but wins us over with the good grace with which he admits his faults. One minute he is praising the quality of his newly baked pots, the next laughing at himself for spending months on building a canoe too large and too far from shore for him ever to be able to drag it to the sea. All the while he struggles to give some meaning to his isolation, a meaning he chooses to find in his own vision of God (a God that, by remarkable coincidence, exactly mirrors Defoe's own, nonconformist vision of his Almighty). It's not an endeavour of which Richard Dawkins - or indeed I - would necessarily approve but it's certainly one appropriate to Crusoe's time and personality.

Robinson Crusoe has been analysed as a prototypical text of British imperialism, a moral text, a religious text and even a Marxist text. It has drawn the attention of Rousseau, Wilkie Collins, Coetzee and Joyce among thousands of others. Having read it, one suddenly sees why. The only thing it lacks is the wonderful theme music from the 1960s TV series.


Lengthy, but worth it, 25 Jun 2008
The original Robinson Crusoe story is said to have been told by an old sailor in a dark bar in Bristol, and said to be his own. Daniel Defoe heard closely and used it to inspire his novel. Modern authors (like French Le Clezio) made their versions a lot shorter, simpler, well, for kids. Defoe's work is of another dimension, much closer to reality.

Part Ray Mears Bush Craft, Part Religious Meditation, 14 Nov 2007
Acknowledged to be one of (if not the) first novel, the unexpurgated version of Robinson Crusoe is nothing like the childrens' book that most people grow up with. For starters, the vast majority of pages in the Penguin version are about the practicalities of living alone on a deserted island, including details accounts of catching, enclosing and raising goats, planting crops and strengthening his shelters. As other reviewers have said, this does become repetitive and it's not helped that Defoe interserpeses it with paragraphs wherein Robinson considers the nature of God and the road to salvation. Yes, Crusoe does become a more devout Christian as a result of staying on the island, but it's telling that this starts because of a terror that he's about to die and what will happen to him when he does.

The book begins with an account of Crusoe's upbringing, his determination to go to sea in the face of parental objection and a disastrous voyage that sees him sold into slavery. On his escape (helped by a fellow slave who Crusoe in turn sells into slavery!), he's rescued by a Portugese captain and taken to Brazil where he starts a plantation before his wanderlust takes hold again and he embarks on a voyage to buy slaves in Guinea, a voyage that ends in the shipwreck that leaves him stuck on an island for 28 years.

The casual attitude towards slavery may make modern readers uncomfortable. I was certainly shocked by the way Crusoe on several occassions wishes he had some slaves to work for him and his relationship with Friday is certainly one of benevolent white man bringing God to the savage.

The plot only really gets going in the final 80 pages when Defore introduces cannibals and deserters and has Crusoe engage in two daring rescues. Even now these sections are entertaining and the action really gathers speed as we follow Crusoe's deliverance back to civilisation and ending with a peculiar almost postscript of what happens when he decides to travel by land instead of sea and is attacked by ravenous wolves.

The novel is definitely worth a look, but will likely be unpalatable to some modern readers because of the extensive (and somewhat unconvincing) religious meditations.

Traditional and factual. Hard to complete comapared to modern novels, 24 Jun 2007
Robinson Crusoe is claimed to be one of the first novel's written in English (1719) and is a fictional autobiography of a man who is from a very average family in England at that time. The story moves from the main characters moving out of his family home and travelling the seas to his eventual shipwreck off the American coast.

I read this book over an extended period of time due to exams in School but also because they book is very laborious with a completely different style of writing to contemporary writers. At times it is written very factually that reminded me of a non-fiction book such as the treatment of certain animals and how to tame them.

For looking into how literature started and an abstract insight into general life in these times, the first part of the book, the story can be of relevance and provide enough stimulation to finish. Also as many reviewers have mentioned before the novel is also allegorical with the classic shipwrecked story on one level and the deep insight into humanity and how humans behave on the other. Despite some believing that this second level of thought provides more entertainment to the story and makes the book worth reading I personally did not find that stimulating.

However despite its downfalls I still believe Robinson Crusoe to be worth reading for its literature value (as in what the book did for literature, moving it along etc), but it also captures the practical issues with being stuck on a desert island very well. If looking for a page-turner I wouldn't advise this book but the storyline is still appealing.


Other links: Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel: The further adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Film: Castaway


Open your eyes., 14 Oct 2006
Just a quickie. Some of the above reviews remind us of how slow and boring this book can be and how repetitive. Well, guys, that's the point. How exciting do you suppose being stranded alone on an Island can be? What would you do to pass the time? Defoe takes us back to a time before T.V etc. Your day would be boring, although eventually menial tasks save ones sanity. Time does pass slowly as it looses relavance. It's not a classic for nothing.

Beyond Imagination, 14 Dec 2007
Imagine every other person in your social circle, family, friends, workplace and high street dropping dead. This was the reality of the Black Death, at least in the more crowded settlements. A tragedy beyond imagination that Defoe brings alive.

It's not the mortality that grips you, catastrophic as they were, but how people, even close relatives, shunned each other because of the near-certainty of contracting the disease and ending up dead themselves.

It's probably my duty to highlight, too, that the Black Death was almost certainly not bubonic plague as it doesn't fit the facts of how the disease spread, but hemorrhagic fever. One of the key pieces of evidence is the outbreak of plague in Iceland, which is known not to harbour a rat population at that time.

Rivetting factual account, 30 Jun 2002
A Journal of the Plague Year argues its case better by a bald statement of facts, than by any elaborate literary devices. This reads like it is meant to be, a journal, bringing home the horrors of that awful time in a way that a second-hand description could never do.
Having said that, this account IS second-hand; it is only Defoe's journalistic expertise, boyhood memories and down-to-earth style that make it so believable.

BUT - anyone who reads this should not expect another Gulliver's Travels - it IS heavy going; it's not a book that one can curl up with & relax, you have to work for your entertainment.

The main point that comes across is the constant religious undercurrent, which was, I guess, typical of the time (if not of Defoe) and the willingness to attach blame for anything unusual to outsiders, or God's will, rather than examine their own circumstances (so what's changed in 337 years!?). As one of the few records of that terrible year, this deserves a place on any amateur historian's bookshelf.

Dark, gripping, and sad story based on a truthful account., 10 Jun 2000
If you skip the depressing death bills, this story will grip you and won't let you go until the end. If you are a history major this story will give you insight into 1660's. Be it human nature, government setup, society setup, etc. A must read!

Fascinating 17th Century Docu-Soap account of the Plague., 28 Apr 2000
I was interested in this book because it promised an account by one who was there and not by student historians who make a living by guessing our past. The gripping eye-witness descriptions make up for the often tedious death toll listings which, once you've read one are best skipped over. A symapthetic view - not too dark.

Interesting and at times quite grisly, 07 Aug 1999
What I like best about DeFoe is that he is very readable and can hold your attention for hours. Sure, he can contradict himself at times and he does have a flair for repetition and while he is not above pointing out the obvious, DeFoe is extremely interesting. "A Journal of the Plague Year" contains all the things DeFoe is noted for including a sharp eye for detail and sly humour. I liked this book and recommend it mainly because much of what DeFoe observed about human nature in the early 18th century is still relevant today.

A great adventurous, historical account of a life., 28 Sep 2005
Having avoided watching various TV adaptations and never reading the book before, I was hesitant to read this book. Whilst working abroad the book was a last option on the book shop shelf. I was very much wrong in my assumption regarding the book. It is a marvelous account of live at the rough end during the 17th century. The story moves between London and Virginia and steps from one drama to the next throughout. I was captivated throughout by the trials and tribulations of Moll and her many aborted marriages and criminal capers. I was torn between feeling sympathy for Moll and being incredulous at just how many scrapes one woman could get into and escape from. As stated by others this is also a great account of live during Molls time and also of traditions, morals and customs of the time. I now almost regret not making time for the TV adaptation, although I'm sure it would not have been as good.

Give me not Poverty, lest I steal, 11 Sep 2005
This human portrait of a woman is also an excellent sketch of the living conditions and the social stratification in England in the 18th century: 'the Age is so wicked and the Sex so Debauch'd'.
It shows the immense chasm between a small class of wealthy people and the rest (Swift: a thousand to one). The latter were struggling for sheer survival and praying 'Give me not Poverty, lest I steal' ... to be hanged: 'If I swing by the String, I shall hear the Bell ring, and then there's an End of poor Jenny.'

But both classes intermingled.
As E.J. Burford quotes in his masterful book 'The Synfull Citie':
Those who were riche were hangid by the Pursse
Those who were poore were hangid by the Necke

Defoe's Moll Flanders: 'the passive Jade thinks of no Pleasure but the Money; and when he is as it were drunk in the Extasies of his wicked Pleasure, her Hands are in his Pockets.'

Defoe paints the poor's religion as fatalism. Moll Flanders is all the time reproaching herself her Course of life, 'a horrid Complication of Wickedness, Whoredom, Adultery, Incest, Lying, Theft', but in the face of death at the gallows, 'I had now neither Remorse or Repentance ... no Thought of Heaven or Hell ... I neither had a Heart to ask God's Mercy.'

Defoe's work is eminently modern, with his psychological insight 'What a Felicity is it to Mankind that they cannot see into the Hearts of one another', and 'Modest men are better Hypocrites';
or, the ravages of alcoholism: 'the Drunk are the Men whom Solomon says, they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, till a Dart strikes through their Liver';
and his feminism: 'the Disadvantage of the Women is a terrible Scandal upon Men', and 'Money only made a Woman agreeable.'

Defoe's appeal to the reader - 'every Branch of my Story may be useful to honest People' - seems to be a smokescreen to circumvent censorship, because ultimately Moll Flanders prospers. This book is a perfect illustration of Bernard
Mandeville's 'Triumph of Private Vices' in his 'Fable of the Bees'.

Although some developments in this story are rather improbable, this superbly ironic and lively text constitutes an immortal portrait of the 'horrid Complication' to be a woman, here personified in Moll Flanders.
Not to be missed.

Immortal Herione, 20 Jul 2005
First real novel? One heck of a chapter to an immortal herione. Defoe a scholar indeed, but today a tired read.

A lesson for those willing to read it, 30 Jun 2004
Moll Flanders: Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for threescore years, besides her childhood, 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 by Daniel Defoe has been an interesting read. This is a true story taken from Moll Flander's own memoirs. This book is a story of wickedness until the last fifty of three hundred pages when 'Moll' finally becomes penitent. It then becomes a story of forgiveness and God's mercy no matter what a person's past life or background has been. Moll is a clever woman who, although wants to be honest and pure, cannot become so because of the society she lives in and what it has reduced her too. This, however, does not exempt her from responsibility for her actions, it just serves as a catalyst and partial cause of her circumstances. The bulk of the book serves as a warning that once a sin is set in motion it is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. It is a lesson for those who are willing to read the book. I give it a lower rating because the story, although a good read and good lessons, became dull at times and a little too graphic.

A classical great, 01 Jun 2002
Everyone knows Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, not all have read the novel which I find his best work, Moll Flanders. Moll's adventures are numerous and in Defoe's time probably happened to someone, it does not seem likely that they all happened to one woman. Moll is seduced by her employer's son, though her troubles really started when she was born in Newgate prison. She was married five times not always waiting for one to die before marrying the next. Moll was an accomplished thief before being transported to Virginia. I found Defoe's romp around the seemier side of the eighteenth century enjoyable and educational.

An island paradise, 19 Aug 2008
We all know about Robinson Crusoe, or at least we think we do. We know about the shipwreck and the years alone on the island and the footprint in the sand and "Man Friday".

Reading the book for the first time, after years of receiving it via the TV and the cinema, in heavily abridged or heavily revised versions, I was amazed to discover how much more there is to find.

The first joy is Defoe's prose, written with all the urgency and precision of a lifelong pamphleteer. Defoe never leaves any doubt as to what his character is trying to say or why he is trying to say it.
The second joy is the pacing. In the brief sections before and after his time on the island, Crusoe undergoes multiple shipwrecks, capture by pirates, escape from slavery, the life of a Brazilian plantation owner, the putting down of a mutiny and even an attack by wolves. Any one of these events could serve quite happily as the climax of another story. As it is, the only time the pace slows is during Crusoe's sojourn on the island and that is only appropriate to his condition.

The greatest joy of the book, though, is Crusoe himself. This is a very real character with very real failings. He is frequently arrogant, unthinking or even plain stupid but wins us over with the good grace with which he admits his faults. One minute he is praising the quality of his newly baked pots, the next laughing at himself for spending months on building a canoe too large and too far from shore for him ever to be able to drag it to the sea. All the while he struggles to give some meaning to his isolation, a meaning he chooses to find in his own vision of God (a God that, by remarkable coincidence, exactly mirrors Defoe's own, nonconformist vision of his Almighty). It's not an endeavour of which Richard Dawkins - or indeed I - would necessarily approve but it's certainly one appropriate to Crusoe's time and personality.

Robinson Crusoe has been analysed as a prototypical text of British imperialism, a moral text, a religious text and even a Marxist text. It has drawn the attention of Rousseau, Wilkie Collins, Coetzee and Joyce among thousands of others. Having read it, one suddenly sees why. The only thing it lacks is the wonderful theme music from the 1960s TV series.


Lengthy, but worth it, 25 Jun 2008
The original Robinson Crusoe story is said to have been told by an old sailor in a dark bar in Bristol, and said to be his own. Daniel Defoe heard closely and used it to inspire his novel. Modern authors (like French Le Clezio) made their versions a lot shorter, simpler, well, for kids. Defoe's work is of another dimension, much closer to reality.

Part Ray Mears Bush Craft, Part Religious Meditation, 14 Nov 2007
Acknowledged to be one of (if not the) first novel, the unexpurgated version of Robinson Crusoe is nothing like the childrens' book that most people grow up with. For starters, the vast majority of pages in the Penguin version are about the practicalities of living alone on a deserted island, including details accounts of catching, enclosing and raising goats, planting crops and strengthening his shelters. As other reviewers have said, this does become repetitive and it's not helped that Defoe interserpeses it with paragraphs wherein Robinson considers the nature of God and the road to salvation. Yes, Crusoe does become a more devout Christian as a result of staying on the island, but it's telling that this starts because of a terror that he's about to die and what will happen to him when he does.

The book begins with an account of Crusoe's upbringing, his determination to go to sea in the face of parental objection and a disastrous voyage that sees him sold into slavery. On his escape (helped by a fellow slave who Crusoe in turn sells into slavery!), he's rescued by a Portugese captain and taken to Brazil where he starts a plantation before his wanderlust takes hold again and he embarks on a voyage to buy slaves in Guinea, a voyage that ends in the shipwreck that leaves him stuck on an island for 28 years.

The casual attitude towards slavery may make modern readers uncomfortable. I was certainly shocked by the way Crusoe on several occassions wishes he had some slaves to work for him and his relationship with Friday is certainly one of benevolent white man bringing God to the savage.

The plot only really gets going in the final 80 pages when Defore introduces cannibals and deserters and has Crusoe engage in two daring rescues. Even now these sections are entertaining and the action really gathers speed as we follow Crusoe's deliverance back to civilisation and ending with a peculiar almost postscript of what happens when he decides to travel by land instead of sea and is attacked by ravenous wolves.

The novel is definitely worth a look, but will likely be unpalatable to some modern readers because of the extensive (and somewhat unconvincing) religious meditations.

Traditional and factual. Hard to complete comapared to modern novels, 24 Jun 2007
Robinson Crusoe is claimed to be one of the first novel's written in English (1719) and is a fictional autobiography of a man who is from a very average family in England at that time. The story moves from the main characters moving out of his family home and travelling the seas to his eventual shipwreck off the American coast.

I read this book over an extended period of time due to exams in School but also because they book is very laborious with a completely different style of writing to contemporary writers. At times it is written very factually that reminded me of a non-fiction book such as the treatment of certain animals and how to tame them.

For looking into how literature started and an abstract insight into general life in these times, the first part of the book, the story can be of relevance and provide enough stimulation to finish. Also as many reviewers have mentioned before the novel is also allegorical with the classic shipwrecked story on one level and the deep insight into humanity and how humans behave on the other. Despite some believing that this second level of thought provides more entertainment to the story and makes the book worth reading I personally did not find that stimulating.

However despite its downfalls I still believe Robinson Crusoe to be worth reading for its literature value (as in what the book did for literature, moving it along etc), but it also captures the practical issues with being stuck on a desert island very well. If looking for a page-turner I wouldn't advise this book but the storyline is still appealing.


Other links: Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel: The further adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Film: Castaway


Open your eyes., 14 Oct 2006
Just a quickie. Some of the above reviews remind us of how slow and boring this book can be and how repetitive. Well, guys, that's the point. How exciting do you suppose being stranded alone on an Island can be? What would you do to pass the time? Defoe takes us back to a time before T.V etc. Your day would be boring, although eventually menial tasks save ones sanity. Time does pass slowly as it looses relavance. It's not a classic for nothing.

Beyond Imagination, 14 Dec 2007
Imagine every other person in your social circle, family, friends, workplace and high street dropping dead. This was the reality of the Black Death, at least in the more crowded settlements. A tragedy beyond imagination that Defoe brings alive.

It's not the mortality that grips you, catastrophic as they were, but how people, even close relatives, shunned each other because of the near-certainty of contracting the disease and ending up dead themselves.

It's probably my duty to highlight, too, that the Black Death was almost certainly not bubonic plague as it doesn't fit the facts of how the disease spread, but hemorrhagic fever. One of the key pieces of evidence is the outbreak of plague in Iceland, which is known not to harbour a rat population at that time.

Rivetting factual account, 30 Jun 2002
A Journal of the Plague Year argues its case better by a bald statement of facts, than by any elaborate literary devices. This reads like it is meant to be, a journal, bringing home the horrors of that awful time in a way that a second-hand description could never do.
Having said that, this account IS second-hand; it is only Defoe's journalistic expertise, boyhood memories and down-to-earth style that make it so believable.

BUT - anyone who reads this should not expect another Gulliver's Travels - it IS heavy going; it's not a book that one can curl up with & relax, you have to work for your entertainment.

The main point that comes across is the constant religious undercurrent, which was, I guess, typical of the time (if not of Defoe) and the willingness to attach blame for anything unusual to outsiders, or God's will, rather than examine their own circumstances (so what's changed in 337 years!?). As one of the few records of that terrible year, this deserves a place on any amateur historian's bookshelf.

Dark, gripping, and sad story based on a truthful account., 10 Jun 2000
If you skip the depressing death bills, this story will grip you and won't let you go until the end. If you are a history major this story will give you insight into 1660's. Be it human nature, government setup, society setup, etc. A must read!

Fascinating 17th Century Docu-Soap account of the Plague., 28 Apr 2000
I was interested in this book because it promised an account by one who was there and not by student historians who make a living by guessing our past. The gripping eye-witness descriptions make up for the often tedious death toll listings which, once you've read one are best skipped over. A symapthetic view - not too dark.

Interesting and at times quite grisly, 07 Aug 1999
What I like best about DeFoe is that he is very readable and can hold your attention for hours. Sure, he can contradict himself at times and he does have a flair for repetition and while he is not above pointing out the obvious, DeFoe is extremely interesting. "A Journal of the Plague Year" contains all the things DeFoe is noted for including a sharp eye for detail and sly humour. I liked this book and recommend it mainly because much of what DeFoe observed about human nature in the early 18th century is still relevant today.

A great adventurous, historical account of a life., 28 Sep 2005
Having avoided watching various TV adaptations and never reading the book before, I was hesitant to read this book. Whilst working abroad the book was a last option on the book shop shelf. I was very much wrong in my assumption regarding the book. It is a marvelous account of live at the rough end during the 17th century. The story moves between London and Virginia and steps from one drama to the next throughout. I was captivated throughout by the trials and tribulations of Moll and her many aborted marriages and criminal capers. I was torn between feeling sympathy for Moll and being incredulous at just how many scrapes one woman could get into and escape from. As stated by others this is also a great account of live during Molls time and also of traditions, morals and customs of the time. I now almost regret not making time for the TV adaptation, although I'm sure it would not have been as good.

Give me not Poverty, lest I steal, 11 Sep 2005
This human portrait of a woman is also an excellent sketch of the living conditions and the social stratification in England in the 18th century: 'the Age is so wicked and the Sex so Debauch'd'.
It shows the immense chasm between a small class of wealthy people and the rest (Swift: a thousand to one). The latter were struggling for sheer survival and praying 'Give me not Poverty, lest I steal' ... to be hanged: 'If I swing by the String, I shall hear the Bell ring, and then there's an End of poor Jenny.'

But both classes intermingled.
As E.J. Burford quotes in his masterful book 'The Synfull Citie':
Those who were riche were hangid by the Pursse
Those who were poore were hangid by the Necke

Defoe's Moll Flanders: 'the passive Jade thinks of no Pleasure but the Money; and when he is as it were drunk in the Extasies of his wicked Pleasure, her Hands are in his Pockets.'

Defoe paints the poor's religion as fatalism. Moll Flanders is all the time reproaching herself her Course of life, 'a horrid Complication of Wickedness, Whoredom, Adultery, Incest, Lying, Theft', but in the face of death at the gallows, 'I had now neither Remorse or Repentance ... no Thought of Heaven or Hell ... I neither had a Heart to ask God's Mercy.'

Defoe's work is eminently modern, with his psychological insight 'What a Felicity is it to Mankind that they cannot see into the Hearts of one another', and 'Modest men are better Hypocrites';
or, the ravages of alcoholism: 'the Drunk are the Men whom Solomon says, they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, till a Dart strikes through their Liver';
and his feminism: 'the Disadvantage of the Women is a terrible Scandal upon Men', and 'Money only made a Woman agreeable.'

Defoe's appeal to the reader - 'every Branch of my Story may be useful to honest People' - seems to be a smokescreen to circumvent censorship, because ultimately Moll Flanders prospers. This book is a perfect illustration of Bernard
Mandeville's 'Triumph of Private Vices' in his 'Fable of the Bees'.

Although some developments in this story are rather improbable, this superbly ironic and lively text constitutes an immortal portrait of the 'horrid Complication' to be a woman, here personified in Moll Flanders.
Not to be missed.

Immortal Herione, 20 Jul 2005
First real novel? One heck of a chapter to an immortal herione. Defoe a scholar indeed, but today a tired read.

A lesson for those willing to read it, 30 Jun 2004
Moll Flanders: Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for threescore years, besides her childhood, 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 by Daniel Defoe has been an interesting read. This is a true story taken from Moll Flander's own memoirs. This book is a story of wickedness until the last fifty of three hundred pages when 'Moll' finally becomes penitent. It then becomes a story of forgiveness and God's mercy no matter what a person's past life or background has been. Moll is a clever woman who, although wants to be honest and pure, cannot become so because of the society she lives in and what it has reduced her too. This, however, does not exempt her from responsibility for her actions, it just serves as a catalyst and partial cause of her circumstances. The bulk of the book serves as a warning that once a sin is set in motion it is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. It is a lesson for those who are willing to read the book. I give it a lower rating because the story, although a good read and good lessons, became dull at times and a little too graphic.

A classical great, 01 Jun 2002
Everyone knows Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, not all have read the novel which I find his best work, Moll Flanders. Moll's adventures are numerous and in Defoe's time probably happened to someone, it does not seem likely that they all happened to one woman. Moll is seduced by her employer's son, though her troubles really started when she was born in Newgate prison. She was married five times not always waiting for one to die before marrying the next. Moll was an accomplished thief before being transported to Virginia. I found Defoe's romp around the seemier side of the eighteenth century enjoyable and educational.

A great adventurous, historical account of a life., 28 Sep 2005
Having avoided watching various TV adaptations and never reading the book before, I was hesitant to read this book. Whilst working abroad the book was a last option on the book shop shelf. I was very much wrong in my assumption regarding the book. It is a marvelous account of live at the rough end during the 17th century. The story moves between London and Virginia and steps from one drama to the next throughout. I was captivated throughout by the trials and tribulations of Moll and her many aborted marriages and criminal capers. I was torn between feeling sympathy for Moll and being incredulous at just how many scrapes one woman could get into and escape from. As stated by others this is also a great account of live during Molls time and also of traditions, morals and customs of the time. I now almost regret not making time for the TV adaptation, although I'm sure it would not have been as good.

Give me not Poverty, lest I steal, 11 Sep 2005
This human portrait of a woman is also an excellent sketch of the living conditions and the social stratification in England in the 18th century: 'the Age is so wicked and the Sex so Debauch'd'.
It shows the immense chasm between a small class of wealthy people and the rest (Swift: a thousand to one). The latter were struggling for sheer survival and praying 'Give me not Poverty, lest I steal' ... to be hanged: 'If I swing by the String, I shall hear the Bell ring, and then there's an End of poor Jenny.'

But both classes intermingled.
As E.J. Burford quotes in his masterful book 'The Synfull Citie':
Those who were riche were hangid by the Pursse
Those who were poore were hangid by the Necke

Defoe's Moll Flanders: 'the passive Jade thinks of no Pleasure but the Money; and when he is as it were drunk in the Extasies of his wicked Pleasure, her Hands are in his Pockets.'

Defoe paints the poor's religion as fatalism. Moll Flanders is all the time reproaching herself her Course of life, 'a horrid Complication of Wickedness, Whoredom, Adultery, Incest, Lying, Theft', but in the face of death at the gallows, 'I had now neither Remorse or Repentance ... no Thought of Heaven or Hell ... I neither had a Heart to ask God's Mercy.'

Defoe's work is eminently modern, with his psychological insight 'What a Felicity is it to Mankind that they cannot see into the Hearts of one another', and 'Modest men are better Hypocrites';
or, the ravages of alcoholism: 'the Drunk are the Men whom Solomon says, they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, till a Dart strikes through their Liver';
and his feminism: 'the Disadvantage of the Women is a terrible Scandal upon Men', and 'Money only made a Woman agreeable.'

Defoe's appeal to the reader - 'every Branch of my Story may be useful to honest People' - seems to be a smokescreen to circumvent censorship, because ultimately Moll Flanders prospers. This book is a perfect illustration of Bernard
Mandeville's 'Triumph of Private Vices' in his 'Fable of the Bees'.

Although some developments in this story are rather improbable, this superbly ironic and lively text constitutes an immortal portrait of the 'horrid Complication' to be a woman, here personified in Moll Flanders.
Not to be missed.

Immortal Herione, 20 Jul 2005
First real novel? One heck of a chapter to an immortal herione. Defoe a scholar indeed, but today a tired read.

A lesson for those willing to read it, 30 Jun 2004
Moll Flanders: Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for threescore years, besides her childhood, 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 by Daniel Defoe has been an interesting read. This is a true story taken from Moll Flander's own memoirs. This book is a story of wickedness until the last fifty of three hundred pages when 'Moll' finally becomes penitent. It then becomes a story of forgiveness and God's mercy no matter what a person's past life or background has been. Moll is a clever woman who, although wants to be honest and pure, cannot become so because of the society she lives in and what it has reduced her too. This, however, does not exempt her from responsibility for her actions, it just serves as a catalyst and partial cause of her circumstances. The bulk of the book serves as a warning that once a sin is set in motion it is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. It is a lesson for those who are willing to read the book. I give it a lower rating because the story, although a good read and good lessons, became dull at times and a little too graphic.

A classical great, 01 Jun 2002
Everyone knows Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, not all have read the novel which I find his best work, Moll Flanders. Moll's adventures are numerous and in Defoe's time probably happened to someone, it does not seem likely that they all happened to one woman. Moll is seduced by her employer's son, though her troubles really started when she was born in Newgate prison. She was married five times not always waiting for one to die before marrying the next. Moll was an accomplished thief before being transported to Virginia. I found Defoe's romp around the seemier side of the eighteenth century enjoyable and educational.

An island paradise, 19 Aug 2008
We all know about Robinson Crusoe, or at least we think we do. We know about the shipwreck and the years alone on the island and the footprint in the sand and "Man Friday".

Reading the book for the first time, after years of receiving it via the TV and the cinema, in heavily abridged or heavily revised versions, I was amazed to discover how much more there is to find.

The first joy is Defoe's prose, written with all the urgency and precision of a lifelong pamphleteer. Defoe never leaves any doubt as to what his character is trying to say or why he is trying to say it.
The second joy is the pacing. In the brief sections before and after his time on the island, Crusoe undergoes multiple shipwrecks, capture by pirates, escape from slavery, the life of a Brazilian plantation owner, the putting down of a mutiny and even an attack by wolves. Any one of these events could serve quite happily as the climax of another story. As it is, the only time the pace slows is during Crusoe's sojourn on the island and that is only appropriate to his condition.

The greatest joy of the book, though, is Crusoe himself. This is a very real character with very real failings. He is frequently arrogant, unthinking or even plain stupid but wins us over with the good grace with which he admits his faults. One minute he is praising the quality of his newly baked pots, the next laughing at himself for spending months on building a canoe too large and too far from shore for him ever to be able to drag it to the sea. All the while he struggles to give some meaning to his isolation, a meaning he chooses to find in his own vision of God (a God that, by remarkable coincidence, exactly mirrors Defoe's own, nonconformist vision of his Almighty). It's not an endeavour of which Richard Dawkins - or indeed I - would necessarily approve but it's certainly one appropriate to Crusoe's time and personality.

Robinson Crusoe has been analysed as a prototypical text of British imperialism, a moral text, a religious text and even a Marxist text. It has drawn the attention of Rousseau, Wilkie Collins, Coetzee and Joyce among thousands of others. Having read it, one suddenly sees why. The only thing it lacks is the wonderful theme music from the 1960s TV series.


Lengthy, but worth it, 25 Jun 2008
The original Robinson Crusoe story is said to have been told by an old sailor in a dark bar in Bristol, and said to be his own. Daniel Defoe heard closely and used it to inspire his novel. Modern authors (like French Le Clezio) made their versions a lot shorter, simpler, well, for kids. Defoe's work is of another dimension, much closer to reality.

Part Ray Mears Bush Craft, Part Religious Meditation, 14 Nov 2007
Acknowledged to be one of (if not the) first novel, the unexpurgated version of Robinson Crusoe is nothing like the childrens' book that most people grow up with. For starters, the vast majority of pages in the Penguin version are about the practicalities of living alone on a deserted island, including details accounts of catching, enclosing and raising goats, planting crops and strengthening his shelters. As other reviewers have said, this does become repetitive and it's not helped that Defoe interserpeses it with paragraphs wherein Robinson considers the nature of God and the road to salvation. Yes, Crusoe does become a more devout Christian as a result of staying on the island, but it's telling that this starts because of a terror that he's about to die and what will happen to him when he does.

The book begins with an account of Crusoe's upbringing, his determination to go to sea in the face of parental objection and a disastrous voyage that sees him sold into slavery. On his escape (helped by a fellow slave who Crusoe in turn sells into slavery!), he's rescued by a Portugese captain and taken to Brazil where he starts a plantation before his wanderlust takes hold again and he embarks on a voyage to buy slaves in Guinea, a voyage that ends in the shipwreck that leaves him stuck on an island for 28 years.

The casual attitude towards slavery may make modern readers uncomfortable. I was certainly shocked by the way Crusoe on several occassions wishes he had some slaves to work for him and his relationship with Friday is certainly one of benevolent white man bringing God to the savage.

The plot only really gets going in the final 80 pages when Defore introduces cannibals and deserters and has Crusoe engage in two daring rescues. Even now these sections are entertaining and the action really gathers speed as we follow Crusoe's deliverance back to civilisation and ending with a peculiar almost postscript of what happens when he decides to travel by land instead of sea and is attacked by ravenous wolves.

The novel is definitely worth a look, but will likely be unpalatable to some modern readers because of the extensive (and somewhat unconvincing) religious meditations.

Traditional and factual. Hard to complete comapared to modern novels, 24 Jun 2007
Robinson Crusoe is claimed to be one of the first novel's written in English (1719) and is a fictional autobiography of a man who is from a very average family in England at that time. The story moves from the main characters moving out of his family home and travelling the seas to his eventual shipwreck off the American coast.

I read this book over an extended period of time due to exams in School but also because they book is very laborious with a completely different style of writing to contemporary writers. At times it is written very factually that reminded me of a non-fiction book such as the treatment of certain animals and how to tame them.

For looking into how literature started and an abstract insight into general life in these times, the first part of the book, the story can be of relevance and provide enough stimulation to finish. Also as many reviewers have mentioned before the novel is also allegorical with the classic shipwrecked story on one level and the deep insight into humanity and how humans behave on the other. Despite some believing that this second level of thought provides more entertainment to the story and makes the book worth reading I personally did not find that stimulating.

However despite its downfalls I still believe Robinson Crusoe to be worth reading for its literature value (as in what the book did for literature, moving it along etc), but it also captures the practical issues with being stuck on a desert island very well. If looking for a page-turner I wouldn't advise this book but the storyline is still appealing.


Other links: Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel: The further adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Film: Castaway


Open your eyes., 14 Oct 2006
Just a quickie. Some of the above reviews remind us of how slow and boring this book can be and how repetitive. Well, guys, that's the point. How exciting do you suppose being stranded alone on an Island can be? What would you do to pass the time? Defoe takes us back to a time before T.V etc. Your day would be boring, although eventually menial tasks save ones sanity. Time does pass slowly as it looses relavance. It's not a classic for nothing.

Beyond Imagination, 14 Dec 2007
Imagine every other person in your social circle, family, friends, workplace and high street dropping dead. This was the reality of the Black Death, at least in the more crowded settlements. A tragedy beyond imagination that Defoe brings alive.

It's not the mortality that grips you, catastrophic as they were, but how people, even close relatives, shunned each other because of the near-certainty of contracting the disease and ending up dead themselves.

It's probably my duty to highlight, too, that the Black Death was almost certainly not bubonic plague as it doesn't fit the facts of how the disease spread, but hemorrhagic fever. One of the key pieces of evidence is the outbreak of plague in Iceland, which is known not to harbour a rat population at that time.

Rivetting factual account, 30 Jun 2002
A Journal of the Plague Year argues its case better by a bald statement of facts, than by any elaborate literary devices. This reads like it is meant to be, a journal, bringing home the horrors of that awful time in a way that a second-hand description could never do.
Having said that, this account IS second-hand; it is only Defoe's journalistic expertise, boyhood memories and down-to-earth style that make it so believable.

BUT - anyone who reads this should not expect another Gulliver's Travels - it IS heavy going; it's not a book that one can curl up with & relax, you have to work for your entertainment.

The main point that comes across is the constant religious undercurrent, which was, I guess, typical of the time (if not of Defoe) and the willingness to attach blame for anything unusual to outsiders, or God's will, rather than examine their own circumstances (so what's changed in 337 years!?). As one of the few records of that terrible year, this deserves a place on any amateur historian's bookshelf.

Dark, gripping, and sad story based on a truthful account., 10 Jun 2000
If you skip the depressing death bills, this story will grip you and won't let you go until the end. If you are a history major this story will give you insight into 1660's. Be it human nature, government setup, society setup, etc. A must read!

Fascinating 17th Century Docu-Soap account of the Plague., 28 Apr 2000
I was interested in this book because it promised an account by one who was there and not by student historians who make a living by guessing our past. The gripping eye-witness descriptions make up for the often tedious death toll listings which, once you've read one are best skipped over. A symapthetic view - not too dark.

Interesting and at times quite grisly, 07 Aug 1999
What I like best about DeFoe is that he is very readable and can hold your attention for hours. Sure, he can contradict himself at times and he does have a flair for repetition and while he is not above pointing out the obvious, DeFoe is extremely interesting. "A Journal of the Plague Year" contains all the things DeFoe is noted for including a sharp eye for detail and sly humour. I liked this book and recommend it mainly because much of what DeFoe observed about human nature in the early 18th century is still relevant today.

A great adventurous, historical account of a life., 28 Sep 2005
Having avoided watching various TV adaptations and never reading the book before, I was hesitant to read this book. Whilst working abroad the book was a last option on the book shop shelf. I was very much wrong in my assumption regarding the book. It is a marvelous account of live at the rough end during the 17th century. The story moves between London and Virginia and steps from one drama to the next throughout. I was captivated throughout by the trials and tribulations of Moll and her many aborted marriages and criminal capers. I was torn between feeling sympathy for Moll and being incredulous at just how many scrapes one woman could get into and escape from. As stated by others this is also a great account of live during Molls time and also of traditions, morals and customs of the time. I now almost regret not making time for the TV adaptation, although I'm sure it would not have been as good.

Give me not Poverty, lest I steal, 11 Sep 2005
This human portrait of a woman is also an excellent sketch of the living conditions and the social stratification in England in the 18th century: 'the Age is so wicked and the Sex so Debauch'd'.
It shows the immense chasm between a small class of wealthy people and the rest (Swift: a thousand to one). The latter were struggling for sheer survival and praying 'Give me not Poverty, lest I steal' ... to be hanged: 'If I swing by the String, I shall hear the Bell ring, and then there's an End of poor Jenny.'

But both classes intermingled.
As E.J. Burford quotes in his masterful book 'The Synfull Citie':
Those who were riche were hangid by the Pursse
Those who were poore were hangid by the Necke

Defoe's Moll Flanders: 'the passive Jade thinks of no Pleasure but the Money; and when he is as it were drunk in the Extasies of his wicked Pleasure, her Hands are in his Pockets.'

Defoe paints the poor's religion as fatalism. Moll Flanders is all the time reproaching herself her Course of life, 'a horrid Complication of Wickedness, Whoredom, Adultery, Incest, Lying, Theft', but in the face of death at the gallows, 'I had now neither Remorse or Repentance ... no Thought of Heaven or Hell ... I neither had a Heart to ask God's Mercy.'

Defoe's work is eminently modern, with his psychological insight 'What a Felicity is it to Mankind that they cannot see into the Hearts of one another', and 'Modest men are better Hypocrites';
or, the ravages of alcoholism: 'the Drunk are the Men whom Solomon says, they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, till a Dart strikes through their Liver';
and his feminism: 'the Disadvantage of the Women is a terrible Scandal upon Men', and 'Money only made a Woman agreeable.'

Defoe's appeal to the reader - 'every Branch of my Story may be useful to honest People' - seems to be a smokescreen to circumvent censorship, because ultimately Moll Flanders prospers. This book is a perfect illustration of Bernard
Mandeville's 'Triumph of Private Vices' in his 'Fable of the Bees'.

Although some developments in this story are rather improbable, this superbly ironic and lively text constitutes an immortal portrait of the 'horrid Complication' to be a woman, here personified in Moll Flanders.
Not to be missed.

Immortal Herione, 20 Jul 2005
First real novel? One heck of a chapter to an immortal herione. Defoe a scholar indeed, but today a tired read.

A lesson for those willing to read it, 30 Jun 2004
Moll Flanders: Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for threescore years, besides her childhood, 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 by Daniel Defoe has been an interesting read. This is a true story taken from Moll Flander's own memoirs. This book is a story of wickedness until the last fifty of three hundred pages when 'Moll' finally becomes penitent. It then becomes a story of forgiveness and God's mercy no matter what a person's past life or background has been. Moll is a clever woman who, although wants to be honest and pure, cannot become so because of the society she lives in and what it has reduced her too. This, however, does not exempt her from responsibility for her actions, it just serves as a catalyst and partial cause of her circumstances. The bulk of the book serves as a warning that once a sin is set in motion it is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. It is a lesson for those who are willing to read the book. I give it a lower rating because the story, although a good read and good lessons, became dull at times and a little too graphic.

A classical great, 01 Jun 2002
Everyone knows Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, not all have read the novel which I find his best work, Moll Flanders. Moll's adventures are numerous and in Defoe's time probably happened to someone, it does not seem likely that they all happened to one woman. Moll is seduced by her employer's son, though her troubles really started when she was born in Newgate prison. She was married five times not always waiting for one to die before marrying the next. Moll was an accomplished thief before being transported to Virginia. I found Defoe's romp around the seemier side of the eighteenth century enjoyable and educational.

A great adventurous, historical account of a life., 28 Sep 2005
Having avoided watching various TV adaptations and never reading the book before, I was hesitant to read this book. Whilst working abroad the book was a last option on the book shop shelf. I was very much wrong in my assumption regarding the book. It is a marvelous account of live at the rough end during the 17th century. The story moves between London and Virginia and steps from one drama to the next throughout. I was captivated throughout by the trials and tribulations of Moll and her many aborted marriages and criminal capers. I was torn between feeling sympathy for Moll and being incredulous at just how many scrapes one woman could get into and escape from. As stated by others this is also a great account of live during Molls time and also of traditions, morals and customs of the time. I now almost regret not making time for the TV adaptation, although I'm sure it would not have been as good.

Give me not Poverty, lest I steal, 11 Sep 2005
This human portrait of a woman is also an excellent sketch of the living conditions and the social stratification in England in the 18th century: 'the Age is so wicked and the Sex so Debauch'd'.
It shows the immense chasm between a small class of wealthy people and the rest (Swift: a thousand to one). The latter were struggling for sheer survival and praying 'Give me not Poverty, lest I steal' ... to be hanged: 'If I swing by the String, I shall hear the Bell ring, and then there's an End of poor Jenny.'

But both classes intermingled.
As E.J. Burford quotes in his masterful book 'The Synfull Citie':
Those who were riche were hangid by the Pursse
Those who were poore were hangid by the Necke

Defoe's Moll Flanders: 'the passive Jade thinks of no Pleasure but the Money; and when he is as it were drunk in the Extasies of his wicked Pleasure, her Hands are in his Pockets.'

Defoe paints the poor's religion as fatalism. Moll Flanders is all the time reproaching herself her Course of life, 'a horrid Complication of Wickedness, Whoredom, Adultery, Incest, Lying, Theft', but in the face of death at the gallows, 'I had now neither Remorse or Repentance ... no Thought of Heaven or Hell ... I neither had a Heart to ask God's Mercy.'

Defoe's work is eminently modern, with his psychological insight 'What a Felicity is it to Mankind that they cannot see into the Hearts of one another', and 'Modest men are better Hypocrites';
or, the ravages of alcoholism: 'the Drunk are the Men whom Solomon says, they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, till a Dart strikes through their Liver';
and his feminism: 'the Disadvantage of the Women is a terrible Scandal upon Men', and 'Money only made a Woman agreeable.'

Defoe's appeal to the reader - 'every Branch of my Story may be useful to honest People' - seems to be a smokescreen to circumvent censorship, because ultimately Moll Flanders prospers. This book is a perfect illustration of Bernard
Mandeville's 'Triumph of Private Vices' in his 'Fable of the Bees'.

Although some developments in this story are rather improbable, this superbly ironic and lively text constitutes an immortal portrait of the 'horrid Complication' to be a woman, here personified in Moll Flanders.
Not to be missed.

Immortal Herione, 20 Jul 2005
First real novel? One heck of a chapter to an immortal herione. Defoe a scholar indeed, but today a tired read.

A lesson for those willing to read it, 30 Jun 2004
Moll Flanders: Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continu'd Variety for threescore years, besides her childhood, 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 by Daniel Defoe has been an interesting read. This is a true story taken from Moll Flander's own memoirs. This book is a story of wickedness until the last fifty of three hundred pages when 'Moll' finally becomes penitent. It then becomes a story of forgiveness and God's mercy no matter what a person's past life or background has been. Moll is a clever woman who, although wants to be honest and pure, cannot become so because of the society she lives in and what it has reduced her too. This, however, does not exempt her from responsibility for her actions, it just serves as a catalyst and partial cause of her circumstances. The bulk of the book serves as a warning that once a sin is set in motion it is very difficult, if not impossible, to stop. It is a lesson for those who are willing to read the book. I give it a lower rating because the story, although a good read and good lessons, became dull at times and a little too graphic.

A classical great, 01 Jun 2002
Everyone knows Daniel Defoe wrote Robinson Crusoe, not all have read the novel which I find his best work, Moll Flanders. Moll's adventures are numerous and in Defoe's time probably happened to someone, it does not seem likely that they all happened to one woman. Moll is seduced by her employer's son, though her troubles really started when she was born in Newgate prison. She was married five times not always waiting for one to die before marrying the next. Moll was an accomplished thief before being transported to Virginia. I found Defoe's romp around the seemier side of the eighteenth century enjoyable and educational.

An island paradise, 19 Aug 2008
We all know about Robinson Crusoe, or at least we think we do. We know about the shipwreck and the years alone on the island and the footprint in the sand and "Man Friday".

Reading the book for the first time, after years of receiving it via the TV and the cinema, in heavily abridged or heavily revised versions, I was amazed to discover how much more there is to find.

The first joy is Defoe's prose, written with all the urgency and precision of a lifelong pamphleteer. Defoe never leaves any doubt as to what his character is trying to say or why he is trying to say it.
The second joy is the pacing. In the brief sections before and after his time on the island, Crusoe undergoes multiple shipwrecks, capture by pirates, escape from slavery, the life of a Brazilian plantation owner, the putting down of a mutiny and even an attack by wolves. Any one of these events could serve quite happily as the climax of another story. As it is, the only time the pace slows is during Crusoe's sojourn on the island and that is only appropriate to his condition.

The greatest joy of the book, though, is Crusoe himself. This is a very real character with very real failings. He is frequently arrogant, unthinking or even plain stupid but wins us over with the good grace with which he admits his faults. One minute he is praising the quality of his newly baked pots, the next laughing at himself for spending months on building a canoe too large and too far from shore for him ever to be able to drag it to the sea. All the while he struggles to give some meaning to his isolation, a meaning he chooses to find in his own vision of God (a God that, by remarkable coincidence, exactly mirrors Defoe's own, nonconformist vision of his Almighty). It's not an endeavour of which Richard Dawkins - or indeed I - would necessarily approve but it's certainly one appropriate to Crusoe's time and personality.

Robinson Crusoe has been analysed as a prototypical text of British imperialism, a moral text, a religious text and even a Marxist text. It has drawn the attention of Rousseau, Wilkie Collins, Coetzee and Joyce among thousands of others. Having read it, one suddenly sees why. The only thing it lacks is the wonderful theme music from the 1960s TV series.


Lengthy, but worth it, 25 Jun 2008
The original Robinson Crusoe story is said to have been told by an old sailor in a dark bar in Bristol, and said to be his own. Daniel Defoe heard closely and used it to inspire his novel. Modern authors (like French Le Clezio) made their versions a lot shorter, simpler, well, for kids. Defoe's work is of another dimension, much closer to reality.

Part Ray Mears Bush Craft, Part Religious Meditation, 14 Nov 2007
Acknowledged to be one of (if not the) first novel, the unexpurgated version of Robinson Crusoe is nothing like the childrens' book that most people grow up with. For starters, the vast majority of pages in the Penguin version are about the practicalities of living alone on a deserted island, including details accounts of catching, enclosing and raising goats, planting crops and strengthening his shelters. As other reviewers have said, this does become repetitive and it's not helped that Defoe interserpeses it with paragraphs wherein Robinson considers the nature of God and the road to salvation. Yes, Crusoe does become a more devout Christian as a result of staying on the island, but it's telling that this starts because of a terror that he's about to die and what will happen to him when he does.

The book begins with an account of Crusoe's upbringing, his determination to go to sea in the face of parental objection and a disastrous voyage that sees him sold into slavery. On his escape (helped by a fellow slave who Crusoe in turn sells into slavery!), he's rescued by a Portugese captain and taken to Brazil where he starts a plantation before his wanderlust takes hold again and he embarks on a voyage to buy slaves in Guinea, a voyage that ends in the shipwreck that leaves him stuck on an island for 28 years.

The casual attitude towards slavery may make modern readers uncomfortable. I was certainly shocked by the way Crusoe on several occassions wishes he had some slaves to work for him and his relationship with Friday is certainly one of benevolent white man bringing God to the savage.

The plot only really gets going in the final 80 pages when Defore introduces cannibals and deserters and has Crusoe engage in two daring rescues. Even now these sections are entertaining and the action really gathers speed as we follow Crusoe's deliverance back to civilisation and ending with a peculiar almost postscript of what happens when he decides to travel by land instead of sea and is attacked by ravenous wolves.

The novel is definitely worth a look, but will likely be unpalatable to some modern readers because of the extensive (and somewhat unconvincing) religious meditations.

Traditional and factual. Hard to complete comapared to modern novels, 24 Jun 2007
Robinson Crusoe is claimed to be one of the first novel's written in English (1719) and is a fictional autobiography of a man who is from a very average family in England at that time. The story moves from the main characters moving out of his family home and travelling the seas to his eventual shipwreck off the American coast.

I read this book over an extended period of time due to exams in School but also because they book is very laborious with a completely different style of writing to contemporary writers. At times it is written very factually that reminded me of a non-fiction book such as the treatment of certain animals and how to tame them.

For looking into how literature started and an abstract insight into general life in these times, the first part of the book, the story can be of relevance and provide enough stimulation to finish. Also as many reviewers have mentioned before the novel is also allegorical with the classic shipwrecked story on one level and the deep insight into humanity and how humans behave on the other. Despite some believing that this second level of thought provides more entertainment to the story and makes the book worth reading I personally did not find that stimulating.

However despite its downfalls I still believe Robinson Crusoe to be worth reading for its literature value (as in what the book did for literature, moving it along etc), but it also captures the practical issues with being stuck on a desert island very well. If looking for a page-turner I wouldn't advise this book but the storyline is still appealing.


Other links: Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel: The further adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Film: Castaway


Open your eyes., 14 Oct 2006
Just a quickie. Some of the above reviews remind us of how slow and boring this book can be and how repetitive. Well, guys, that's the point. How exciting do you suppose being stranded alone on an Island can be? What would you do to pass the time? Defoe takes us back to a time before T.V etc. Your day would be boring, although eventually menial tasks save ones sanity. Time does pass slowly as it looses relavance. It's not a classic for nothing.

An island paradise, 19 Aug 2008
We all know about Robinson Crusoe, or at least we think we do. We know about the shipwreck and the years alone on the island and the footprint in the sand and "Man Friday".

Reading the book for the first time, after years of receiving it via the TV and the cinema, in heavily abridged or heavily revised versions, I was amazed to discover how much more there is to find.

The first joy is Defoe's prose, written with all the urgency and precision of a lifelong pamphleteer. Defoe never leaves any doubt as to what his character is trying to say or why he is trying to say it.
The second joy is the pacing. In the brief sections before and after his time on the island, Crusoe undergoes multiple shipwrecks, capture by pirates, escape from slavery, the life of a Brazilian plantation owner, the putting down of a mutiny and even an attack by wolves. Any one of these events could serve quite happily as the climax of another story. As it is, the only time the pace slows is during Crusoe's sojourn on the island and that is only appropriate to his condition.

The greatest joy of the book, though, is Crusoe himself. This is a very real character with very real failings. He is frequently arrogant, unthinking or even plain stupid but wins us over with the good grace with which he admits his faults. One minute he is praising the quality of his newly baked pots, the next laughing at himself for spending months on building a canoe too large and too far from shore for him ever to be able to drag it to the sea. All the while he struggles to give some meaning to his isolation, a meaning he chooses to find in his own vision of God (a God that, by remarkable coincidence, exactly mirrors Defoe's own, nonconformist vision of his Almighty). It's not an endeavour of which Richard Dawkins - or indeed I - would necessarily approve but it's certainly one appropriate to Crusoe's time and personality.

Robinson Crusoe has been analysed as a prototypical text of British imperialism, a moral text, a religious text and even a Marxist text. It has drawn the attention of Rousseau, Wilkie Collins, Coetzee and Joyce among thousands of others. Having read it, one suddenly sees why. The only thing it lacks is the wonderful theme music from the 1960s TV series.


Lengthy, but worth it, 25 Jun 2008
The original Robinson Crusoe story is said to have been told by an old sailor in a dark bar in Bristol, and said to be his own. Daniel Defoe heard closely and used it to inspire his novel. Modern authors (like French Le Clezio) made their versions a lot shorter, simpler, well, for kids. Defoe's work is of another dimension, much closer to reality.

Part Ray Mears Bush Craft, Part Religious Meditation, 14 Nov 2007
Acknowledged to be one of (if not the) first novel, the unexpurgated version of Robinson Crusoe is nothing like the childrens' book that most people grow up with. For starters, the vast majority of pages in the Penguin version are about the practicalities of living alone on a deserted island, including details accounts of catching, enclosing and raising goats, planting crops and strengthening his shelters. As other reviewers have said, this does become repetitive and it's not helped that Defoe interserpeses it with paragraphs wherein Robinson considers the nature of God and the road to salvation. Yes, Crusoe does become a more devout Christian as a result of staying on the island, but it's telling that this starts because of a terror that he's about to die and what will happen to him when he does.

The book begins with an account of Crusoe's upbringing, his determination to go to sea in the face of parental objection and a disastrous voyage that sees him sold into slavery. On his escape (helped by a fellow slave who Crusoe in turn sells into slavery!), he's rescued by a Portugese captain and taken to Brazil where he starts a plantation before his wanderlust takes hold again and he embarks on a voyage to buy slaves in Guinea, a voyage that ends in the shipwreck that leaves him stuck on an island for 28 years.

The casual attitude towards slavery may make modern readers uncomfortable. I was certainly shocked by the way Crusoe on several occassions wishes he had some slaves to work for him and his relationship with Friday is certainly one of benevolent white man bringing God to the savage.

The plot only really gets going in the final 80 pages when Defore introduces cannibals and deserters and has Crusoe engage in two daring rescues. Even now these sections are entertaining and the action really gathers speed as we follow Crusoe's deliverance back to civilisation and ending with a peculiar almost postscript of what happens when he decides to travel by land instead of sea and is attacked by ravenous wolves.

The novel is definitely worth a look, but will likely be unpalatable to some modern readers because of the extensive (and somewhat unconvincing) religious meditations.

Traditional and factual. Hard to complete comapared to modern novels, 24 Jun 2007
Robinson Crusoe is claimed to be one of the first novel's written in English (1719) and is a fictional autobiography of a man who is from a very average family in England at that time. The story moves from the main characters moving out of his family home and travelling the seas to his eventual shipwreck off the American coast.

I read this book over an extended period of time due to exams in School but also because they book is very laborious with a completely different style of writing to contemporary writers. At times it is written very factually that reminded me of a non-fiction book such as the treatment of certain animals and how to tame them.

For looking into how literature started and an abstract insight into general life in these times, the first part of the book, the story can be of relevance and provide enough stimulation to finish. Also as many reviewers have mentioned before the novel is also allegorical with the classic shipwrecked story on one level and the deep insight into humanity and how humans behave on the other. Despite some believing that this second level of thought provides more entertainment to the story and makes the book worth reading I personally did not find that stimulating.

However despite its downfalls I still believe Robinson Crusoe to be worth reading for its literature value (as in what the book did for literature, moving it along etc), but it also captures the practical issues with being stuck on a desert island very well. If looking for a page-turner I wouldn't advise this book but the storyline is still appealing.


Other links: Defoe went on to write a lesser known sequel: The further adventures of Robinson Crusoe.
Film: Castaway


Open your eyes., 14 Oct 2006
Just a quickie. Some of the above reviews remind us of how slow and boring this book can be and how repetitive. Well, guys, that's the point. How exciting do you suppose being stranded alone on an Island can be? What would you do to pass the time? Defoe takes us back to a time before T.V etc. Your day would be boring, although eventually menial tasks save ones sanity. Time does pass slowly as it looses relavance. It's not a classic for nothing.

Beyond Imagination, 14 Dec 2007
Imagine every other person in your social circle, family, friends, workplace and high street dropping dead. This was the reality of the Black Death, at least in the more crowded settlements. A tragedy beyond imagination that Defoe brings alive.

It's not the mortality that grips you, catastrophic as they were, but how people, even close relatives, shunned each other because of the near-certainty of contracting the disease and ending up dead themselves.

It's probably my duty to highlight, too, that the Black Death was almost certainly not bubonic plague as it doesn't fit the facts of how the disease spread, but hemorrhagic fever. One of the key pieces of evidence is the outbreak of plague in Iceland, which is known not to harbour a rat population at that time.

Rivetting factual account, 30 Jun 2002
A Journal of the Plague Year argues its case better by a bald statement of facts, than by any elaborate literary devices. This reads like it is meant to be, a journal, bringing home the horrors of that awful time in a way that a second-hand description could never do.
Having said that, this account IS second-hand; it is only Defoe's journalistic expertise, boyhood memories and down-to-earth style that make it so believable.

BUT - anyone who reads this should not expect another Gulliver's Travels - it IS heavy going; it's not a book that one can curl up with & relax, you have to work for your entertainment.

The main point that comes across is the constant religious undercurrent, which was, I guess, typical of the time (if not of Defoe) and the willingness to attach blame for anything unusual to outsiders, or God's will, rather than examine their own circumstances (so what's changed in 337 years!?). As one of the few records of that terrible year, this deserves a place on any amateur historian's bookshelf.

Dark, gripping, and sad story based on a truthful account., 10 Jun 2000
If you skip the depressing death bills, this story will grip you and won't let you go until the end. If you are a history major this story will give you insight into 1660's. Be it human nature, government setup, society setup, etc. A must read!

Fascinating 17th Century Docu-Soap account of the Plague., 28 Apr 2000
I was interested in this book because it promised an account by one who was there and not by student historians who make a living by guessing our past. The gripping eye-witness descriptions make up for the often tedious death toll listings which, once you've read one are best skipped over. A symapthetic view - not too dark.

Interesting and at times quite grisly, 07 Aug 1999
What I like best about DeFoe is that he is very readable and can hold your attention for hours. Sure, he can contradict himself at times and he does have a flair for repetition and while he is not above pointing out the obvious, DeFoe is extremely interesting. "A Journal of the Plague Year" contains all the things DeFoe is noted for including a sharp eye for detail and sly humour. I liked this book and recommend it mainly because much of what DeFoe observed about human nature in the early 18th century is still relevant today.

A great adventurous, historical account of a life., 28 Sep 2005
Having avoided watching various TV adaptations and never reading the book before, I was hesitant to read this book. Whilst working abroad the book was a last option on the book shop shelf. I was very much wrong in my assumption regarding the book. It is a marvelous account of live at the rough end during the 17th century. The story moves between London and Virginia and steps from one drama to the next throughout. I was captivated throughout by the trials and tribulations of Moll and her many aborted marriages and criminal capers. I was torn between feeling sympathy for Moll and being incredulous at just how many scrapes one woman could get into and escape from. As stated by others this is also a great account of live during Molls time and also of traditions, morals and customs of the time. I now almost regret not making time for the TV adaptation, although I'm sure it would not have been as good.

Give me not Poverty, lest I steal, 11 Sep 2005
This human portrait of a woman is also an excellent sketch of the living conditions and the social stratification in England in the 18th century: 'the Age is so wicked and the Sex so Debauch'd'.
It shows the immense chasm between a small class of wealthy people and the rest (Swift: a thousand to one). The latter were struggling for sheer survival and praying 'Give me not Poverty, lest I steal' ... to be hanged: 'If I swing by the String, I shall hear the Bell ring, and then there's an End of poor Jenny.'

But both classes intermingled.
As E.J. Burford quotes in his masterful book 'The Synfull Citie':
Those who were riche were hangid by the Pursse
Those who were poore were hangid by the Necke

Defoe's Moll Flanders: 'the passive Jade thinks of no Pleasure but the Money; and when he is as it were drunk in the Extasies of his wicked Pleasure, her Hands are in his Pockets.'

Defoe paints the poor's religion as fatalism. Moll Flanders is all the time reproaching herself her Course of life, 'a horrid Complication of Wickedness, Whoredom, Adultery, Incest, Lying, Theft', but in the face of death at the gallows, 'I had now neither Remorse or Repentance ... no Thought of Heaven or Hell ... I neither had a Heart to ask God's Mercy.'

Defoe's work is eminently modern, with his psychological insight 'What a Felicity is it to Mankind that they cannot see into the Hearts of one another', and 'Modest men are better Hypocrites';
or, the ravages of alcoholism: 'the Drunk are the Men whom Solomon says, they go like an Ox to the Slaughter, till a Dart strikes through their Liver';
and his feminism: 'the Disadvantage of the Women is a terrible Scandal upon Men', and 'Money only made a Woman agreeable.'

Defoe's appeal to the reader - 'every Branch of my Story may be useful to honest People' - seems to be a smokescreen to circumvent censorship, because ultimately Moll Flanders prospers. This book is a perfect illustration of Bernard
Mandeville's 'Triumph of Private Vices' in his 'Fable of the Bees'.

Although some developments in this story are rather improbable, this superbly ironic and lively text constitutes an immortal portrait of the 'horrid Complication' to be a woman, here personified in Moll Flanders.
Not to be missed.

Immortal Herione, 20 Jul 2005
First real novel? One heck of a chapter to an immortal herione. Defoe a scholar indeed, but tod