Authors: Daniel Defoe, David Blewett
ISBN-13: 9780140431490, ISBN-10: 0140431497
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated
Date Published: June 1982
Edition: Reprint
John Mullan is Lecturer in English at University College, London.
Roxana (1724), Defoe's last and darkest novel, is the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. Its narrator tells the story of her own "wicked" life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past. This edition uses the rare first edition text, with a new Introduction, detailed Notes, textual history and a map of contemporary London.