Our February pick is "Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defoe.
Moll Flanders is, according to Virginia Woolf, one of the "few
English novels which we can call indisputably great." Written by Defoe
in 1722 under a pseudonym so his readers would think it an actual
journal of the ribald fortunes and misfortunes of a woman in
eighteenth-century London, the book remains a picaresque novel of
astonishing vitality. From her birth in Newgate Prison to her ascent to a
position of wealth and stature, Moll Flanders demonstrates both a
mercantile spirit and an indomitable will. This 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, most candid records of a woman's progress through the
hypocritical labyrinth of society ever recorded. "Defoe seems to have
taken his characters so deeply into his mind that he lived them without
exactly knowing how," wrote Virginia Woolf. "Like all unconscious
artists, he leaves more gold in his work than his own generation was
able to bring to the surface."
For more information regarding this book club, contact Jenn Bartlett at: jbartlett@cheshirelibrary.org. To register for this program, visit: http://www.eventkeeper.com/code/ekform.cfm?curOrg=CHESHIRE&curApp=events&curID=125908
