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Title: Roxana: Or the Fortunate Mistress by Daniel Defoe ISBN: 0-460-87676-7 Publisher: Everymans Library Pub. Date: February, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Little known book by Defoe
Comment: I love this book. It was as good as "Moll Flanders" and has a very happy and satisfying ending.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Defoe fan
Comment: I read "Robinson Crusoe" as a young boy, and never forgot it (55 years later); then, as a mature adult I read "A Journal of the Plague Year" and "Moll Flanders", both of which were execellent reads; and a few days ago I finished "Roxana", so let me share a few thoughts about the book.
First off, when you read Defoe, it is essential to realize that you are dipping into the very beginnings of English literature. Anything that is three centuries removed from the present has to be put into its historical context in order to make sense of it, and contemporary values must be held in abeyance. If you are capable of doing that, you are in for a heck of a good story, as are all of the books mentioned above.
"Roxana" concerns the rise and fall (mostly rise) of a woman left destitute, along with her five children, by her fool of a husband. Circumstances eventually lead her to prostitution as a means of survival, and as luck would have it, her "gentlemen protectors" are uniformly wealthy, and by means of careful marshalling of her earnings Roxana becomes independently wealthy. But what she lacks is social status, which leads her to her final alliance with a Dutch merchant who knows nothing of her past.
Along the way, Roxana begets and abandons about nine offspring here and there(this being the days before birth control), and one of them, Susan, figures in the downfall of Roxana. This novel pays great attention to the psychological aspects of living a life that is generally condemned by society. Defoe shapes Roxana's psychological health around his own ethical views, and, as such, makes Roxana suffer for her choices in the long run. Thus, the novel does not end happily for its central character, an interesting fact, in that this is the only novel of Defoe's that does not end happily for the protagonist.
All told, "Roxana" is a great read. Defoe certainly reflects his ethical biases, but at the same time does a good job of objectively fleshing out charaters who forcefully express points of view that differ from his own.
For me, everything worked beautifully in the novel until the last paragraph, but that happens a lot in literature.
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Title: Joseph Andrews and Shamela (Penguin Classics) by Henry Fielding, Judith Hawley ISBN: 0140433864 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: November, 1999 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Evelina : or, The History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Elizabeth Kowaleski Wallace, Fanny Burney ISBN: 0375758054 Publisher: Modern Library Pub. Date: 04 December, 2001 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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