Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent. He even put that claim in the latter’s title, which is worth recounting in full: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. But that shouldn’t be taken too seriously: Defoe also claimed that Robinson Crusoe was written by a man who really lived on a desert island for 28 years, and that his book about the celebrated thief Moll Flanders was written “from her own memorandums”. Never made publick before” and credited the book to HF, understood to be his uncle Henry Foe. Written by a CITIZEN who continued all the while in London. Defoe claimed that the book was a genuine contemporary account – its title page states that the book consists of: “Observations or Memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665. When the plague was ravaging London, Defoe was around five years old. It was published in 1722, more than 50 years after the events it describes. The first thing to say about A Journal of the Plague Year is that it is not, strictly speaking, a first-hand record.
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