"With this new edition of Moll Flanders, instructors are at last well-equipped to teach Defoe's challenging and enigmatic novel. Scanlon has carefully edited and helpfully annotated the most authoritative text of Moll and supplied readers with a wealth of contemporary texts, including Defoe's comments on women's roles in urban life, that illuminate the complex cultural context into which Defoe launched his novel. These glimpses of Defoe's other writings in combination with excerpts from literary contemporaries give students and general readers an unprecedentedly rich context in which to understand Moll Flanders." -- Melissa Mowry, St. John's University, New York

Paul Scanlon Professor and Head of the Department of English at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman, has written widely on Renaissance and eighteenth-century literature.