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    Moll Flanders
    Moll Flanders
    Moll Flanders
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Moll Flanders

    Written by Daniel Defoe

    Narrated by Rowena Cooper

    3.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Born in Newgate Prison and abandoned soon after, Moll Flanders is searching for a secure place in society. Her desire to belong propels her into all kinds of trouble from numerous marriages, bigamy and incest to theft. Charting her progress from an innocent but determined young girl to a contentedly resigned elderly woman, Defoe’s novel casts a light on the splendours and iniquities of life in 18th century England and America. It is a tale of sin and repentance, portrayed through a rich pageant of comical scenes.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Copyright Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2014
    ISBN9781780001135
    Author

    Daniel Defoe

    Daniel Defoe was born at the beginning of a period of history known as the English Restoration, so-named because it was when King Charles II restored the monarchy to England following the English Civil War and the brief dictatorship of Oliver Cromwell. Defoe’s contemporaries included Isaac Newton and Samuel Pepys.

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    Reviews for Moll Flanders

    3.5/5

    1,152 ratings32 reviews

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    • 5/5
      CAptured the best of the story. Great reading voice !
    • 3/5
      What if there were a drunken Chatty Cathy sitting next to you at a dinner party and wanted to tell you her life story? That's what Moll Flanders reads like. In the end, it became the same thing over and over again. I would have liked it a lot more if it had been about half as long.
    • 4/5
      Although written by a man in the early eighteenth century, Moll is vivid and entirely believable - and even something of a pragmatic feminist. Moll recognises that marriage is important because women don't have the same freedom as men to have careers. She is a survivor in a hostile world. At the end she claims to repent some of the more 'immoral' aspects of her life, but she doesn't seem to mean what she says, and - unlike many 'bad' women in fiction - she isn't made to suffer for her sins, which in itself is refreshing. [Feb 2004]
    • 3/5
      Audiobook on CD. Book written detailing the adventures of Moll Flanders who lives by her wits and her body. Her fortune is made several times by herself, but is lost again, mostly due to her poor choice in men (drunks, womanisers, already married etc). Narrative is bawdy, jolly etc. It is both a serious (about a world where a woman can rarely survive on her own and with few rights to even her own money) and not-serious tale (she goes through husbands with almost every chapter). As a result of these dalliances, she has plenty of children, of which little is heard off once they are packed off somewhere else, to ensure that Moll isn’t hindered by a flock of children following her. I dont know if a woman would really do this, or whether this is Defoe's "wishful thinking" of fertile women not actually having children in tow. Overall an enjoyable lighthearted 18th century romp
    • 4/5
      Moll Flanders by Daniel DefoeConsidered one of the great classic novels, Defoe's book follows Moll Flanders as she struggles to avoid the deadly poverty of 17th-century England. From a prison birth to final prosperity Moll considers love, theft and prostitution in terms of profit and loss. She emerges as an extraordinary character.This is the vivid saga of an irresistible and notorious heroine. Her high misdemeanors and delinquencies, her varied careers as a prostitute, a charming and faithful wife, a thief, and a convict endures today as one of the liveliest and most candid records of a woman's progress through the hypercritical walks of society ever recorded.Moll isn't the most proper of women. She isn't the cleanest. She isn't the most trust worthy. She isn't a lot of things. But what Moll Flanders is; is an exceptional character of literature. I loved Moll! I can't wait to give this one a reread.
    • 3/5
      Pretty good, except for the moralizing.
    • 5/5
      I have always loved to read, since I was a child. I devour books like hungry people devour food. However, I hated reading so-called "classics" required in school. Words cannot express how much I hated "The Catcher in the Rye", "Heart of Darkness" and "Grapes of Wrath." It wasn't until I became a senior high school that I finally came across two classics that I enjoyed, A Scarlet Letter and Moll Flanders. Perhaps I just wanted to read about rebellious, independent women?Moll Flanders has every bit the adventure of Robison Crusoe, just more scandalous for the time since she was a woman. I loved how she overcame adversity to live her life on her own terms. While the language is a bit formal compared to modern prose, the story transcends. Heartily recommended - especially to those like me who have resisted classic literature.
    • 4/5
      Riotous! This book was written in the early 18th century, and I can understand why it would have been a bit of a sensation. Its tale is now pretty tame for our current time and place.
      Spaced throughout the novel there are several pages regarding the condition of women at the time, and how they were at the mercy of a male dominated world in everything from their virtue, marriage, childbirth, and employment. While for me, it sometimes became tiring to read such moralizing, it did also make me grateful I live in THIS century.
    • 3/5
       Moll Flanders is a strange book. It's a cautionary tale, but it also feels like a sermon on promiscuity and greed. The book follows the life of Moll Flanders from her infancy, being born to a criminal in prison, all the way through her life which also ends in crime. She grows into a beautiful woman and ends up marrying one man after another. Her horrible circumstances move her from one bad situation to another. One husband dies, another ditches her, and another turns out to be her half-brother! I enjoyed the first half much more than the second. The story’s moralistic tone echoes that in the author’s other famous work, Robinson Crusoe.
    • 2/5
      Story has sad, but honest beginning which moves into Moll's willing seduction by the elder son of her kind and generous patrons. Character has little to recommend and plot quickly becomes repetitive, tedious, and too boring to continue...
    • 1/5
      Loved this on PBS, but couldn't stand reading it. Quit before 100 pages
    • 3/5
      Too long ago to remember. I do remember she ends up in the American colonies for a happy ending
    • 5/5
      The quality of Defoe’s work varies wildly and if you have been stung before, fear not, for this is one of the good ones. It’s a proper page turner, but there’s far more to it than that. All the way through there’s this counterbalance between reason on the one hand and crime on the other, caused by either inclination or necessity. You can read it just as a series of plot less set piece scenes but what really fascinated me in Moll’ character was her treatment of her own children. It’s almost psychopathic. Seriously, she abandons all her, what, nine or ten children. I think this behaviour all ties in to being (unintentionally) abandoned by her own mother in Newgate and I think this ties to the reason / crime argument. She’s a sinner, not by inclination but because of the appalling events of her life. An argument that’s still going on today, and this novel explores the idea better than anything else I’ve read.
    • 5/5
      A wild, chaotic ride through 17th century London, culminating in an unplanned trip as an exile to the New World. Moll Flanders is an amoral opportunist who tries to turn every situation to her advantage when she discovers that as a young woman alone, the deck is stacked against her. She learns not only how to survive, but how to thrive until it all comes crashing down in a legal case that threatens her very life.
    • 5/5
      We get a real taste of old England. Very well written in the King's English. If you are a little unsure about the subject matter, the great writing will make you happy you picked up the book. The leading character always has your sensibilities uppermost in her mind, so no worries.
    • 5/5
      Davina Porter does a marvelous narration. Since the book is written in the first person, she has become Moll to me!
    • 3/5
      I read this book for a course entitled "History of Prostitution." In this course we really questioned what a prostitute was, since we don't have very clear lines in written law. I felt this book lent a lot of historical insight as to how women were treated and how easy it would be for someone to become a "fallen woman." It's well written, if not a little dry. It is worth the read if the history of women is one of your interests.
    • 4/5
      Two things stood out for me:
      It's a first-hand look at the underside of early 18th-century life in England and the American colonies, particularly the economic constraints on women.
      Defoe was a skillful writer: compare Robinson Crusoe, Journal of the Plague Year, and Moll Flanders. Each differs from the others in the handling of how Defoe presents himself as the author, how he creates a supposed narrator, and how the characters speak (or not) about themselves.
    • 3/5
      I've been trying to read early English 'novels' (and related things), and this is a distant fourth so far, behind Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels and Joseph Andrews. On the upside, there are some memorable scenes and characters. But it doesn't really cohere too well, and there's a little hint of paid-per-word about the whole criminal activities section. Supposedly most people are really into Moll's thieving, but frankly I found her whoring and intra-familial reproduction much more gripping.
    • 5/5
      A masterpiece, I thoroughly enjoyed Defoe's, Moll Flander's. It would be interesting to do a comparative study of the various heroines in classic fiction; Nana, Lady Chatterley, Madame Bovary, and Anna Karenina, to name a few. I look forward to reading Samuel Richardson's Clarissa/The History of a Young Life (which is an 18th century creation, like Moll Flanders’) this summer to add to my increasing repertoire of fascinating female heroines.
    • 4/5
      Better than John Bunyan's Grace abounding to the Chief of Sinners; more detailed a portrait than the Wife of Bath, who also, remember, had 5 wives (EDIT: by which of course I mean five HUSBANDS); hell, it's probably the best book of its kind. But how in god's name am I going to teach it?

      This edition interesting for its Virginia Woolf introduction, which is mainly about Robinson Crusoe, about which she has more interesting things to say than she does Moll Flanders. The Woolf is also a nice record of a particular kind of criticism that discovered the value of a work of art in its tranhistorical truths about Human Nature. I can see easily how this same period--Woolf's that is--produced The Waste Land and Finnegans Wake, all of which also make the same profoundly ahistorical, profoundly appropriative, profoundly unethical mistake.
    • 5/5
      I was certainly not happy to hear Defoe insist at length, in the preface, that he'd taken all the dirty parts out.

      Defoe was many things as a writer, but "fun" isn't high up the list.

      Also, check out this sentence: "She asked him if he thought she was so at her last shift that she could or ought to bear such treatment, and if he did not see that she did not want those who thought it worth their while to come farther to her than he did, meaning the gentleman she had brought to visit her by way of sham." I actually can't figure out if that sentence means anything or not. Is she saying she doesn't want the dude who was willing to travel to hit on her? Why not? Sure, he's actually like her cousin or whatever, but the dude she's talking to isn't supposed to know that...

      Dude writes some over complicated sentences, is what I'm saying. I don't remember Crusoe being this convoluted.

      Ah! I've been trying to figure out how Defoe writes a book with no women in it, and then a book from a woman's point of view; the similarity is that they both work from desperate places. Places of necessity.

      I still need a while to process this book. Around halfway through I thought that not only did I not like it, but it made me like Robinson Crusoe less too. Now having finished it, I feel like it's a five-star book. I might bump it down to four. Defoe is sortof a humorless bastard, and he doesn't particularly get inside his characters' heads. But Moll Flanders, particularly, feels like a very subversive book to me. Moll insists on taking control of her life. Men certainly come off as insignificant at best.

      I didn't love the Signet Classic edition I read; it was sorta...little. I like my books to be weightier and more important looking. (And, incidentally, the used copy I ordered came with random passages underlined, which drives me nuts.) Did have a fairly good afterword, though. Although it threatened to spoil like six other 18-century books I'm about to read, so I had to skip whole paragraphs.
    • 3/5
      kinda ridiculous, but also kinda funny. It's interesting to see Defoe's stance on religion basically undermine the entire story at the end. or does it?
    • 5/5
      I adore Moll. She's a fascinating, dynamic character: full of depth, verve, and joi de vivre. She's as flawed as characters come (an amoral whore that frequently uses people to suit her own ends, while placing all her love and trust (and fortune) in people who inevitably abandon her or let her down). And yet, she's completely aware of her flaws and acknowledges that they are flaws. The change and growth in Moll is progressive, logical, and exceedingly realistic.
    • 2/5
      With the novel's title you know what's going to happen: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders who 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. Written from her own Memorandums.Sounds all very exciting, but to me it was a tedious account by a very annoying person. I didn't like her at all, and it goes on forever describing various husbands, lovers and money-worries - the latter is preeminent - the children she have we hear little or nothing about - as if they were just some play dolls. From a historic point of view of course it's interesting to read as a precursor to the modern novel.
    • 4/5
      Moll Flanders was a surprisingly good read considering it was written in the 17th century and thought to be one of the first novels ever written. It wouldn't make my favorites list, but the story definitely never got boring. All of Moll's story is pretty much summed up in the paragraph-long title. She gets married five times (once to her brother! Unknowingly, of course), becomes an infamous criminal, and then settles down for a quiet life in rural Carolina where she inherits a fortune from her mother. I admit, the fact that my copy had no chapter breaks whatsoever, had every noun capitalized, and had no quotation marks for the dialogue made this book a little tedious to read at times, but otherwise it was an entertaining story. If Moll Flanders was ever rewritten as a contemporary novel, I believe that it could be a favorite.
    • 5/5
      Great novel about how rough it was to be a woman alone in the world. Moll is pious when she can afford to be, lawless and wicked when she can't. A great book if you enjoy dramatic irony, and I do.
    • 4/5
      What can I say about Moll Flanders? This book really makes you look at the life of women in the past. Moll does a lot of things that will make you go what!? I enjoyed it because it is a book that can be analyzed and interpreted in so many ways. Moll becomes a survivor in a world that she was made to fail in.
    • 4/5
      The lack of chapters (a later development in English novel writing) poses a bit of a challenge, and there are spots where the book gets a bit tedious in recounting minutia of relationships. However, this book rewards readers with an interesting view on the rising middle class (dare I say bourgeoisie) and the intersection of raising capital to secure one's class position, gender relations, and the impacts on the human character. To what would you stoop if put in the situation of Moll or her many husbands, suitors, and friends? What do we inherit from a society structured in the manner we encounter in this novel? In what ways does our society mold our character as Moll's molds hers, and what do we make of this? This novel provoked quite a few questions like this, which in the end seems to me to be one of the main reasons we still read classics. I just wish that it had been a slightly more enjoyable read to go along with the provocation.
    • 4/5
      Daniel Defoe engages the reader in a story which exposes the plight of women in 17th century England. Moll Flanders (a name used for disguise) lives a life of one who must/chooses to do whatever it takes to survive. Throughout the tale, she is the victim of misfortunes both of her own creating and not of her own creating. This is an excellent book, particularly for those readers who like period pieces.