NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 1

Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders

CLASSIC Read by Heather Bell FICTION

3 Compact discs

NA337212 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 2

CD 1

1 My true name is well known in the records 6:06 2 When I was 14 my old nurse died 8:09 3 The younger brother falls to work with me 3:59 4 One brother prevails upon me to marry the other 6:45 5 With reluctance, I agree 6:34 6 A widow – left loose to the world 5:34 7 Alone again – but in lessened circumstances 7:44 8 A new, kindly husband 3:56 9 We arrived in York River in Virginia 5:52 10 The revelation destroys the marriage 6:09 11 At last I resolved to tell him of it myself 4:30 12 Return to 7:49 13 A new liaison in Bath 5:30

Total time on CD 1: 78:50

2 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 3

CD 2

1 Abandoned again 4:08 2 Taking stock – approaching poverty 4:50 3 At the bank – a sympathetic ear 6:48 4 Travelling North – a wild marriage 7:02 5 Financial reality and a final fling 5:40 6 Another parting and another child 6:34 7 Birth and fostering 4:56 8 A new affair 5:54 9 Marriage – again 6:16 10 Widowhood, poverty and a new career 7:06 11 Moll reflects on her first felony 6:33 12 Moll learns her dangerous trade 5:57 13 The last and fateful theft 7:20

Total time on CD 2: 79:21

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CD 3

1 A husband reappears 5:51 2 Trial – and a plea for mercy 4:38 3 The sentence is proclaimed 5:46 4 Moll reveals herself to her husband 5:42 5 Bound for Virginia again 5:20 6 Inquiries for my family 6:05 7 Uncertainties 6:03 8 Settling in – and a tender reunion 6:15 9 Arranging affairs with my son 5:50 10 A steady life and old age – at last 6:12

Total time on CD 3: 57:55 Total time on CDs 1-3: 3:36:06

4 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 5

Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders

Daniel Defoe, born in London in 1660, lived whore, she turns to crime, but is eventually an extraordinarily varied and interesting life. caught and transported to Virginia. In 1688 he joined Monmouth’s rebellion; he The brilliance of Moll Flanders lies in its was imprisoned at different times for debt absolute honesty and realism: Defoe tells his and for libel; he worked as a secret agent for tale with uncompromising directness and an the government between 1703 and 1714; extraordinary empathy with his heroine’s he started several businesses and wrote plight. Moll’s life is seen as much in terms of prolifically throughout his career. Apart from economics as emotions: we are constantly being a formidable pamphleteer, he also reminded of the precise worth of objects, of virtually invented modern journalism and the exact state of her finances in pounds, may be said to be the first true English shillings and pence; yet we cannot help novelist. Best known for , rejoicing with her in her brief periods of calm his other novels include and prosperity, or pitying her when she is at last Roxana. Defoe’s novels are characterised by caught and carried to the horrors of directness, simplicity of narrative and a Newgate and probable execution. We are superb command of realistic detail – features compelled to see that Moll can only be which also distinguish the powerful Journal judged in the context of her society – a harsh of the Plague Year and the pioneering Tour world of expanding economic activity and through the Whole Island of Great Britain. social aspiration. Moll regrets her immorality, Moll Flanders, published in 1722, was yet confesses that a tale of repentance described by Virginia Woolf as ‘one of the ‘would not be equally diverting as the few English novels we can call indisputably wicked part’; she repeats the wise man’s great.’ Moll, abandoned as a child, tells her prayer ‘Give me not poverty, lest I steal’; and own story – brought up as an orphan, she we are forced to acknowledge that society enters upon a succession of marriages (not may be as much to blame as the individual all of them legal), bent upon economic who struggles to survive within it. survival in a world unsympathetic to the single woman of no fortune. Reduced to abject poverty after six years as a rich man’s Notes by Perry Keenlyside 5 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 6

The music on this recording is taken from the NAXOS catalogue

HANDEL Harpsichord Suites Nos 1-5 8.550415 Alan Cuckston, harpsichord

Cover picture: The Orgy, by Hogarth. Courtesy of: Sir John Soane’s Museum, London. 6 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 7

Other works on Naxos AudioBooks

Far From Madding Crowd Tess of the D'Urbervilles (Hardy) 3CD – NA313612 (Hardy) 3CD – NA314712

Middlemarch Silas Marner (Eliot) 6CD – NA619612 (Eliot) 2CD – NA207512 7 NA337212 Moll Flanders Booklet2 13/10/05 12:53 pm Page 8

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In New Zealand: Triton Music Ltd., P.O. Box 100-899, NSMC, Auckland.

8 NAXOS AudioBooks Daniel Defoe 3 CDs NA337212 Heather Bell Heather Daniel Defoe Daniel Read by Moll Flanders Moll scs 3 i D FICTION CLASSIC NA337212 Compact NAXOS

NA337212 Moll flanders Inlay 6/10/05 10:50 am Page 1 Page am 10:50 6/10/05 Inlay flanders Moll NA337212 AudioBooks Daniel Defoe 3 CDs NA337212 NA337212 Moll flanders Inlay 6/10/05 10:50 am Page 2 N N AudioBooks AudioBooks Total 3:36:06 CD 1: 78:50; 2: 79:21; 3: 57:55; p COPYING OF THESE COMPACT DISCS PROHIBITED. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. UNAUTHORISED PUBLIC PERFORMANCE, BROADCASTING AND Engineer (speech): Alan Smyth, Bucks Audio Cassettes Post-production: Simon Weir, The Classical Recording Company Abridged by Perry Keenlyside Produced by Nicolas Soames A A 2006 NAXOS X X Daniel Defoe OS Moll Flanders OS AudioBooks Ltd. © 2006 NAXOS Made in Germany.

Read by Heather Bell

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders Who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continue’d Variety for Three-score Years, MOLL FLANDERS besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a MOLL FLANDERS 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 Written from her own Memorandums

Heather Bell has worked in repertory companies all over Great Britain and has toured as far afield as Kenya. Regularly seen in London’s West End and on British TV, she is also known for her many leading parts in BBC Radio Drama – notably for creating the role of Clarrie Grundy CLASSIC in ‘The Archers’ and playing her for five years. FICTION 3 3 3 CDs Compact CDs

ISBN 9-626-34372-9 Discs NA337212 NA337212

View our catalogue online at 9 789626 343722 www.naxosaudiobooks.com NA337212 CLASSIC LITERATURE WITH CLASSICAL MUSIC