Why this book

Published in 1722, it stands among the first English novels — no kings, no heroes, only survival. Defoe gave the poor and the fallen a full interior life, and the modern novel began to breathe.

The Story

Her mother was condemned to hang for theft, but pregnancy spared the noose; so Moll came into the world in Newgate prison. The mother was shipped to the colonies, and the child was left behind, nameless, in a stranger's care.

Raised among gypsies and then the parish, Moll dreaded service as a maid. She told everyone she meant to be a gentlewoman — by which the poor child only meant to earn her own bread. Her charm won her a place in a wealthy family's house.

In that house two brothers lived. The elder flattered Moll with gold and promises, and therefore she gave him her heart and her innocence, believing he would wed her. But he never intended marriage — he only wanted the pleasure of a pretty, penniless girl.

When the younger brother Robin fell in love with Moll, the elder urged her to accept him and be quiet. Heartbroken but cornered, she married Robin. Therefore she gained a husband she did not love, and buried her first secret deep.

Five years on, Robin died and left her a modest widow. Restless, Moll married a draper who played at being a gentleman. But he spent wildly, fell into debt, and fled from the bailiffs — leaving her married yet abandoned, and poorer than before.

Seeking security, Moll sailed to Virginia and married a kind plantation owner. For years they lived happily and had children. But one day his aging mother told the story of her own life — a thief once shipped from Newgate to the colonies.

The details matched Moll's own beginnings exactly; therefore she realized with horror that this old woman was her mother — and her husband was her own half-brother. She could not bear the marriage, yet dared not speak the reason aloud.

At last she confessed the whole truth to her husband-brother. The shock nearly broke him, but he let her go. Therefore Moll left her children and her home in Virginia and sailed back to England, alone and unmoored once more.

In the town of Bath, Moll met a gentleman whose wife had lost her mind. Lonely, they drifted into a long affair, and he kept her for years. But when illness turned his heart to religion, he repented and cast her off with a parting sum.

Growing older and fearful of poverty, Moll schemed to trap a rich husband. She met a charming Irishman named Jemmy, and each believed the other wealthy. They married in delight — but soon discovered the bitter joke: both were poor, each deceived by the other.

They laughed and wept at their shared folly, and truly loved each other. But love could not feed them; therefore Jemmy took to the road as a highwayman, and they parted with a promise to reunite when fortune allowed. Moll was again on her own.

Carrying Jemmy's child, Moll placed the baby with a nurse and married a steady bank clerk who had long courted her. For five quiet years she was safe and content. But then the banker's own losses killed him with grief, and left her a widow yet again.

Now Moll was near fifty, alone, and terrified of starving. Recall what she always feared most: poverty, the one enemy she could never marry her way out of. With no husband and no trade, desperation pushed her toward the only skill left — her quick and clever hands.

Almost by accident, Moll snatched a bundle from a shop and fled, sick with fear and shame. But no one caught her, and hunger silenced her conscience. Therefore she stole again, and then again, until theft became her trade and her strange new pride.

An old midwife who had once helped her became her governess in crime, teaching Moll to pick pockets and fence stolen goods. Under her tutoring, Moll grew bold and skilled. Therefore she rose to be the cleverest thief in London, known and feared by name.

One winter night Moll slipped a gold watch from a lady's side in a crowded church, and another time she lifted a child's necklace in a dark alley, tempted even to worse. Each theft fed her purse but gnawed her soul, yet fear of want always won.

For years Moll prospered and grew rich on stolen silk and silver. Her governess begged her to stop while she was safe. But greed and confidence had hardened her; therefore she pressed her luck one theft too far.

One evening two servants seized Moll as she carried off stolen cloth. She pleaded and bribed, but this time there was no escape. Therefore she was dragged to the very place where her life began — the cold stone belly of Newgate prison.

The court condemned Moll to hang. In that grim prison she found Jemmy again, captured at last for robbery on the road. Seeing her old love in chains broke something open in her, and therefore, for the first time, she truly began to repent.

At first the horror of Newgate hardened Moll like all the others, and she grew numb and reckless. But watching condemned souls dragged to the gallows, and facing her own death, cracked her stone heart. Therefore true remorse, not mere fear, at last took hold of her.

A gentle minister visited Moll and drew from her a true and sorrowful confession. Moved by her penitence, he pleaded for her life. Therefore her sentence was softened from the gallows to transportation — banishment across the sea to the colonies of America.

Moll begged that Jemmy be transported with her rather than hanged, and it was granted. Therefore the two ruined lovers sailed together to Virginia, no longer thieves but exiles, carrying a small fortune the governess had saved for them.

In Virginia, Moll learned that her mother had died and left her a working plantation. There too lived her grown son from that unhappy brother-marriage. He welcomed her with love, and therefore the woman born with nothing inherited land, wealth, and family at last.

Moll and Jemmy worked their new estate and grew truly prosperous. In time they returned to England as respectable, wealthy folk. Old now and penitent, Moll resolved to spend her last years in gratitude for a life she had every reason never to survive.

What it means

Here is the heart of it: Defoe refuses to call Moll simply wicked. She sins because poverty leaves her no honest door, and repents only when she can finally afford to. Her story asks whether virtue is character — or merely the luxury of the secure.

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