Moll Flanders

By: Daniel Defoe

Narrated by: Georgina Sutton

"The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders, who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continue'd variety for three-score 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."

So begins Moll Flanders, Daniel Defoe's honest portrayal of one woman's struggle for economic survival in an unsympathetic world. Told with uncompromising directness and an extraordinary empathy, it is, as Virginia Woolf once claimed, "one of the few English novels we can call indisputably great".

Download the accompanying reference guide.Public Domain (P)2017 Naxos AudioBooks

Full Circle

I had an English Professor make me write a paper six different times with different topics on Moll Flanders... and told me he hated my topic and that I could redo the paper for a better grade. I still got a C on it after rewriting this again and again... finally turning the last one in at the end of the semester. So I hated this book after this and avoided it for over 20 years until I decided to listen to the Audiobook.

Now coming full circle I think I appreciate it better today than when I was a college student. I wish I could have listened to it back then... I think I would have grasped it better.

Pure joy.

What a delight to travel back three hundred years and make new acquaintances. Highly recommended.

A seventeenth century version of a Netflix binge

I’m so glad Georgina Sutton read this because I’d never have bothered myself and it’s a great story.

Sutton is such a consummate performer - I’d listen to her read just about anything (try her Mapp And Lucia series- perfect).

But the story is great too, despite the fact Defoe wrote this in a time when people had patience (and no Netflix). Yes, it does go on a bit, but it is a fascinating insight into what life was like back then. Recommended.

Highly recommended!

What an amazing tale--and superbly read! Long, but I stayed with it. And am so glad I did.

Wonderful!

The fascinating story of a resilient woman whose up-and-down-and-up-again fortunes show the realities of women’s lives in the 17th century.

Lively and convincing

Moll Flanders is a wicked creature but a lively narrator; and Georgina Sutton is a delightful reader. After a lifetime of sexual indulgence and theft, Moll ends up happy and repentant on the Eastern Shore, managing a plantation with her husband and reunited with her son - the product of another marriage to a man who turned out to be her brother.

It's a sparkling tale that shows off Defoe's skill with characters and dialogue. It's written in the first person, as if Moll (not her real name, she assures us) is writing her own memoirs. I found Defoe's impersonation of a female narrator convincing. (I should note that when I mentioned this over breakfast one morning, my daughter said: "How would YOU know?" Point taken. All I really know is that I found myself returning to the audiobook with pleasure many times during the day.)

Interesting artifact

What a difference a few decades can make! I seem to remember having a lot more sympathy for the heroine the first time I read this. This time, Moll began to grate. As many times as she bemoaned her fate with a cry of - and I, without a friend in the world - you'd think she'd try to cultivate a few before she got into another pickle. She doesn't. You get very little sense that she cares about anything outside her own small orbit. Ye gods, after having and abandoning so many children I lost count, she claims her son in the colonies is her only child!

But I quibble. It's still fascinating to read/listen to this for what it is: a very early example of the English language novel. It's not at all explicit, but it's frank, and I have to think it's a pretty good depiction of how difficult life could be for a poor woman in 17th century England.

Georgina Sutton is excellent as the narrator.

AUDIBLE 20 REVIEW SWEEPSTAKES ENTRY

Great reader, horrible story

I was assigned this book for a class and wish I could've ended the semester with something that had more applicable commentary to today's world, whereas, this book had none.