Product Description

Roxana (1724), Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own `wicked' life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. A resourceful adventuress, she is also an unforgiving analyst of her own susceptibilities, who tells us of the price she pays for her successes. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past. Unlike Defoe's other penitent anti-heroes, however, she fails to triumph over these weaknesses. The novel's drama lies not only in the heroine's `vast variety of fortunes', but in her attempts to understand the sometimes bitter lessons of her life as a `Fortunate Mistress'. Defoe's achievement was to invent, in `Roxana', a gripping story-teller as well as a gripping story. This edition uses the rare first edition text, with a new introduction, detailed notes, textual history, and a map.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #409206 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

About the Author
John Mullan is Lecturer in English at University College, London.

Customer Reviews

Excellent novel in a very practical edition
Roxana is the last of Defoe's novels (1724). Its full title contains a whole programme of extraordinary adventures. The romantic, exotic Mademoiselle de Beleau - for Roxana is only a nickname of the heroin - experiences all the aspects of eighteenth century life. After her first bankrupt husband abandoned her penniless with her children to care for, Roxana tries to mend her fortune, and little by little she climbs up the social ladder until she decides to fulfil her supreme ambition: being the mistress of the King... Roxana goes the way from rags to riches several times, thus leading the readers into all sorts of stations in life. The memoirs of this wicked criminal woman who led a life of scandal and hypocrisy, sometimes verging on madness, have a moral purpose - at least Defoe tells us so ; they are a compelling, moving spiritual autobiography, but at the same time it is an occasion to see eighteenth-century life in very striking and vivid colours. This is why I liked "Roxana" very much. It is also interesting because it contains many ideas and is very modern in a way, eg when Roxana appears as a genuine proto-feminist. This edition is very practical to use because the notes are numerous and relevant, but not "intruding". The introduction also provides interesting perspectives on the significance and the originality of "Roxana". This novel is not so wel-known as "Robinson Crusoe" or "Moll Flanders" but it is worth reading for it's really enjoyable.

Sex-appeal
The itinerary of Daniel Defoe's heroine is absolutely not a common example of life in Paris and London in the 18th century. At that time, only 10 % of the population was older than 30 years and only one in one thousand was rich.
For Roxana, `Poverty was my Snare', `the dreadful Argument of wanting Bread'. And, `Poverty is the strongest Incentive; a Temptation against which no Virtue is powerful enough to stand out.'
What saves Roxana from a certain early death is her beauty, her sex-appeal: `In une Deshabile you charm me a thousand times more.'
With her beauty she amasses a fortune. After being a slave (`comply and live, deny and starve'), she is free (`the sweetest of Miss is Liberty'): `that while a Woman was single, that she had then the full Command of what she had, and the full Direction of what she did.'
She abhors the institution of matrimony and prefers to be a Mistress: `A Wife is treated with Indifference, a Mistress with a strong Passion; a Wife is looked upon as but an Upper-Servant, a Mistress is a Sovereign.'
But what ultimately brings Roxana down is religion and its correlative, remorse: `the Sence of Religion, and Duty to God, all Regard to Virtue and Honour given up ... (I was) no more than a Whore.'
Remorse makes her look after her abandoned children, but this quest turns into a tragedy.

Like `Moll Flanders', this more moralist text constitutes a formidable portrait of the `horrid Complication' to be a woman.

Not to be missed.

Defoe, an early feminist?
I read this having recently enjoyed Moll Flanders. They are very different, Moll's story is something of a bawdy, satirical comedy, whereas Roxana's is a tragic tale. I think that other reviewers have perhaps missed the irony that is inherent in Defoe's work. While presenting these tales of 'fallen' women as confessions of repentence, I think that was something of a cover, without which his novels would have been unacceptable to his contemporary audience. He creates strong, autonomous women, driven by economics. He does not judge them and because of that neither do we. Was he in fact an early feminist? He believed strongly in the education of women and advocated equality in marriage in 'Conjugal Lewdness.' I think Roxana is an extention of those ideas.