Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress : Or, A History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle De Beleau ... (Penguin English Library)

The final work of Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe

Roxana (1724) was Defoe's last novel. It is a fascinating work, simultaneously strange and tragic, which dramatizes the moral deterioration and degradation of its complex heroine. Mlle Beleau, or Roxana as she becomes known, enters upon a career as a courtesan. She passes from one protector to another in England, France and Holland and amasses much wealth. But she is fatally torn between the dull virtue of middle-class respectability and the evil attractions of the beckoning city lights.

The only one of Defoe's novels that does not end with the triumph of its protagonist, Roxana is nevertheless a triumphant work of art. It is of enormous historical and social interest, highlighting as it does the complex relationship that existed in Defoe's time between public respectability and private corruption.

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