THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE
The
world is so taken up of late with novels and romances, that it will
be hard for a private history to be taken for genuine, where the
names and other circumstances of the person are concealed, and on
this account we must be content to leave the reader to pass his own
opinion upon the ensuing sheet, and take it just as he pleases.The
author is here supposed to be writing her own history, and in the
very beginning of her account she gives the reasons why she thinks
fit to conceal her true name, after which there is no occasion to say
any more about that.It
is true that the original of this story is put into new words, and
the style of the famous lady we here speak of is a little altered;
particularly she is made to tell her own tale in modester words that
she told it at first, the copy which came first to hand having been
written in language more like one still in Newgate than one grown
penitent and humble, as she afterwards pretends to be.The
pen employed in finishing her story, and making it what you now see
it to be, has had no little difficulty to put it into a dress fit to
be seen, and to make it speak language fit to be read. When a woman
debauched from her youth, nay, even being the offspring of debauchery
and vice, comes to give an account of all her vicious practices, and
even to descend to the particular occasions and circumstances by
which she ran through in threescore years, an author must be hard put
to it wrap it up so clean as not to give room, especially for vicious
readers, to turn it to his disadvantage.All
possible care, however, has been taken to give no lewd ideas, no
immodest turns in the new dressing up of this story; no, not to the
worst parts of her expressions. To this purpose some of the vicious
part of her life, which could not be modestly told, is quite left
out, and several other parts are very much shortened. What is left
'tis hoped will not offend the chastest reader or the modest hearer;
and as the best use is made even of the worst story, the moral 'tis
hoped will keep the reader serious, even where the story might
incline him to be otherwise. To give the history of a wicked life
repented of, necessarily requires that the wicked part should be make
as wicked as the real history of it will bear, to illustrate and give
a beauty to the penitent part, which is certainly the best and
brightest, if related with equal spirit and life.It
is suggested there cannot be the same life, the same brightness and
beauty, in relating the penitent part as is in the criminal part. If
there is any truth in that suggestion, I must be allowed to say 'tis
because there is not the same taste and relish in the reading, and
indeed it is to true that the difference lies not in the real worth
of the subject so much as in the gust and palate of the reader.But
as this work is chiefly recommended to those who know how to read it,
and how to make the good uses of it which the story all along
recommends to them, so it is to be hoped that such readers will be
more leased with the moral than the fable, with the application than
with the relation, and with the end of the writer than with the life
of the person written of.There
is in this story abundance of delightful incidents, and all of them
usefully applied. There is an agreeable turn artfully given them in
the relating, that naturally instructs the reader, either one way or
other. The first part of her lewd life with the young gentleman at
Colchester has so many happy turns given it to expose the crime, and
warn all whose circumstances are adapted to it, of the ruinous end of
such things, and the foolish, thoughtless, and abhorred conduct of
both the parties, that it abundantly atones for all the lively
description she gives of her folly and wickedness.The
repentance of her lover at the Bath, and how brought by the just
alarm of his fit of sickness to abandon her; the just caution given
there against even the lawful intimacies of the dearest friends, and
how unable they are to preserve the most solemn resolutions of virtue
without divine assistance; these are parts which, to a just
discernment, will appear to have more real beauty in them all the
amorous chain of story which introduces it.In
a word, as the whole relation is carefully garbled of all the levity
and looseness that was in it, so it all applied, and with the utmost
care, to virtuous and religious uses. None can, without being guilty
of manifest injustice, cast any reproach upon it, or upon our design
in publishing it.The
advocates for the stage have, in all ages, made this the great
argument to persuade people that their plays are useful, and that
they ought to be allowed in the most civilised and in the most
religious government; namely, that they are applied to virtuous
purposes, and that by the most lively representations, they fail not
to recommend virtue and generous principles, and to discourage and
expose all sorts of vice and corruption of manners; and were it true
that they did so, and that they constantly adhered to that rule, as
the test of their acting on the theatre, much might be said in their
favour.Throughout
the infinite variety of this book, this fundamental is most strictly
adhered to; there is not a wicked action in any part of it, but is
first and last rendered unhappy and unfortunate; there is not a
superlative villain brought upon the stage, but either he is brought
to an unhappy end, or brought to be a penitent; there is not an ill
thing mentioned but it is condemned, even in the relation, nor a
virtuous, just thing but it carries its praise along with it. What
can more exactly answer the rule laid down, to recommend even those
representations of things which have so many other just objections
leaving against them? namely, of example, of bad company, obscene
language, and the like.Upon
this foundation this book is recommended to the reader as a work from
every part of which something may be learned, and some just and
religious inference is drawn, by which the reader will have something
of instruction, if he pleases to make use of it.All
the exploits of this lady of fame, in her depredations upon mankind,
stand as so many warnings to honest people to beware of them,
intimating to them by what methods innocent people are drawn in,
plundered and robbed, and by consequence how to avoid them. Her
robbing a little innocent child, dressed fine by the vanity of the
mother, to go to the dancing-school, is a good memento to such people
hereafter, as is likewise her picking the gold watch from the young
lady's side in the Park.Her
getting a parcel from a hare-brained wench at the coaches in St. John
Street; her booty made at the fire, and again at Harwich, all give us
excellent warnings in such cases to be more present to ourselves in
sudden surprises of every sort.Her
application to a sober life and industrious management at last in
Virginia, with her transported spouse, is a story fruitful of
instruction to all the unfortunate creatures who are obliged to seek
their re-establishment abroad, whether by the misery of
transportation or other disaster; letting them know that diligence
and application have their due encouragement, even in the remotest
parts of the world, and that no case can be so low, so despicable, or
so empty of prospect, but that an unwearied industry will go a great
way to deliver us from it, will in time raise the meanest creature to
appear again the world, and give him a new case for his life.There
are a few of the serious inferences which we are led by the hand to
in this book, and these are fully sufficient to justify any man in
recommending it to the world, and much more to justify the
publication of it.There
are two of the most beautiful parts still behind, which this story
gives some idea of, and lets us into the parts of them, but they are
either of them too long to be brought into the same volume, and
indeed are, as I may call them, whole volumes of themselves, viz.: 1.
The life of her governess, as she calls her, who had run through, it
seems, in a few years, all the eminent degrees of a gentlewoman, a
whore, and a bawd; a midwife and a midwife-keeper, as they are
called; a pawnbroker, a childtaker, a receiver of thieves, and of
thieves' purchase, that is to say, of stolen goods; and in a word,
herself a thief, a breeder up of thieves and the like, and yet at
last a penitent.The
second is the life of her transported husband, a highwayman, who it
seems, lived a twelve years' life of successful villainy upon the
road, and even at last came off so well as to be a volunteer
transport, not a convict; and in whose life there is an incredible
variety.But,
as I have said, these are things too long to bring in here, so
neither can I make a promise of the coming out by themselves.We
cannot say, indeed, that this history is carried on quite to the end
of the life of this famous Moll Flanders, as she calls herself, for
nobody can write their own life to the full end of it, unless they
can write it after they are dead. But her husband's life, being
written by a third hand, gives a full account of them both, how long
they lived together in that country, and how they both came to
England again, after about eight years, in which time they were grown
very rich, and where she lived, it seems, to be very old, but was not
so extraordinary a penitent as she was at first; it seems only that
indeed she always spoke with abhorrence of her former life, and of
every part of it.In
her last scene, at Maryland and Virginia, many pleasant things
happened, which makes that part of her life very agreeable, but they
are not told with the same elegancy as those accounted for by
herself; so it is still to the more advantage that we break off here.
MOLL FLANDERS
My
true name is so well known in the records or registers at Newgate,
and in the Old Bailey, and there are some things of such consequence
still depending there, relating to my particular conduct, that it is
not be expected I should set my name or the account of my family to
this work; perhaps, after my death, it may be better known; at
present it would not be proper, no not though a general pardon should
be issued, even without exceptions and reserve of persons or crimes.
It
is enough to tell you, that as some of my worst comrades, who are out
of the way of doing me harm (having gone out of the world by the
steps and the string, as I often expected to go ), knew me by the
name of Moll Flanders, so you may give me leave to speak of myself
under that name till I dare own who I have been, as well as who I am.
I
have been told that in one of neighbour nations, whether it be in
France or where else I know not, they have an order from the king,
that when any criminal is condemned, either to die, or to the
galleys, or to be transported, if they leave any children, as such
are generally unprovided for, by the poverty or forfeiture of their
parents, so they are immediately taken into the care of the
Government, and put into a hospital called the House of Orphans,
where they are bred up, clothed, fed, taught, and when fit to go out,
are placed out to trades or to services, so as to be well able to
provide for themselves by an honest, industrious behaviour.
Had
this been the custom in our country, I had not been left a poor
desolate girl without friends, without clothes, without help or
helper in the world, as was my fate; and by which I was not only
exposed to very great distresses, even before I was capable either of
understanding my case or how to amend it, but brought into a course
of life which was not only scandalous in itself, but which in its
ordinary course tended to the swift destruction both of soul and
body.
But
the case was otherwise here. My mother was convicted of felony for a
certain petty theft scarce worth naming, viz. having an opportunity
of borrowing three pieces of fine holland of a certain draper in
Cheapside. The circumstances are too long to repeat, and I have heard
them related so many ways, that I can scarce be certain which is the
right account.
However
it was, this they all agree in, that my mother pleaded her belly, and
being found quick with child, she was respited for about seven
months; in which time having brought me into the world, and being
about again, she was called down, as they term it, to her former
judgment, but obtained the favour of being transported to the
plantations, and left me about half a year old; and in bad hands, you
may be sure.
This
is too near the first hours of my life for me to relate anything of
myself but by hearsay; it is enough to mention, that as I was born in
such an unhappy place, I had no parish to have recourse to for my
nourishment in my infancy; nor can I give the least account how I was
kept alive, other than that, as I have been told, some relation of my
mother's took me away for a while as a nurse, but at whose expense,
or by whose direction, I know nothing at all of it.
The
first account that I can recollect, or could ever learn of myself,
was that I had wandered among a crew of those people they call
gypsies, or Egyptians; but I believe it was but a very little while
that I had been among them, for I had not had my skin discoloured or
blackened, as they do very young to all the children they carry about
with them; nor can I tell how I came among them, or how I got from
them.
