The Fortunes and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c.

by DEFOE, Daniel.

$134,111 · Offered by Biblio

First edition

London: printed for, and sold by W. Chetwood, at Cato's-Head, in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden; and T. Edling, at the Prince's-Arms over-against Exerter-Change [sic] in the Strand, MDDCXXI., [sic, for 1722]. One of the great rarities of English literature First edition, one of the rarest first editions of the few enduringly popular novels of the 18th century, missing from many significant collections. The first edition was published - despite the garbled date given in the imprint - on 27 January 1722. Two more editions followed in the same year. With Moll Flanders and his later "fortunate mistress" Roxana, "indisputably Defoe has created two of the strongest and most important women characters in the history of literature" (ODNB). "The first English author to write without imitating or adapting foreign works,... to devise for himself an artistic form which is perhaps without precedent... is Daniel Defoe, father of the English novel" (James Joyce, Daniel Defoe, ed. and trans. J. Prescott, Buffalo Studies, 1, 1964, 7). Provenance: with the distinctive circular white leather book label of the celebrated collector Edward Vernon Utterson (1776-1856), an original member of the Roxburghe Club, whose library was sold by Sotheby's in 1852 and 1857. The sides are stamped with the gilt monogram GJV, apparently that of George John Venables-Vernon (1803-1866), who assumed the surname Warren in 1837 when he was elevated to the peerage as fifth Baron Vernon. The family seat was at Sudbury Ha

• Year: 1722
• Edition: First Edition
• Binding: hardcover

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