Daniel Defoe was a very fortunate literary hack. I mean that in a good way. There were a lot of hacks in the early Eighteenth Century and very few of them are read or published these days. Defoe is the main exception: his works have remained in the popular public arena, even if most people these days only encounter Robinson Crusoe as a childrens' story.
1722 was a very important year for the man from Stoke Newington. He was always under threat from creditors and although already in his early sixties he was taking full advantage of the market for long prose narratives that he'd tapped into in 1719 with The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe and its two sequels. 1722 saw him publish three such key works: Moll Flanders, A Journal of The Plague Year and Colonel Jack. For a man who'd almost single-handedly written weekly journals for much of the century so far this level of creative outpouring can't have been too much of a trial for him, but as with HG Wells two hundred years later you can't help but wish he'd written a little less a little better.
Defoe was something of a pioneer, that's certainly true. Critics forgive him a lot for that. If casual readers picking up these three 'novels' take the time to peruse the introductory essays (I'm specifically referencing the Oxford Worlds Classics editions here) they will find a lot of excuses in the main. Continuity errors, name changes, all sorts of mistakes in detail are acknowledged but usually accepted because Defoe was treading new ground and it's unfair to judge a writer of that period by our modern standards.
All three of these 1722 'hits' are uneven creations - but then Defoe was an untidy and uneven writer full stop. It's difficult not to imagine him just making it all up as he went along - or at the very least having a list of events or actions to tick off as he scrawled away, with perhaps the occasional flash of inspiration to flesh out some aspect or other. Occasionally sections of the stories are entered into in great detail - such as the lengthy period at Colchester where Moll is wooed by the older brother to whom she loses her virginity, and then marries his younger brother. Then at other times what we'd consider to be key events or moments of psychological trauma are glossed over in a matter of lines - such as when Jack's fourth wife Moggy, with whom he's raised a happy family, dies almost as an aside at the end of a paragraph.
Moll Flanders and Colonel Jack are linear tales, told from childhood start to penitent finish. A Journal of The Plague Year can be frustrating at times in the way that it flits about untidily to different periods of the infection and different areas of London, although over all it too tries to follow a linear continuity. There are other telltale preoccupations that all three novels share: lists, inventories, character titles instead of proper names, money & economics, religion (to a lesser or greater degree). Readers will rarely, if ever, find a description of a place in these novels. We might be told how the people behave, what the population is and be given some general geographical notes (near the mouth of the river, for example) but never a poetic description. Defoe never tries to tell us what the sunset in Virginia is like, or how the frost glinted off the empty plague-ridden cobbled streets. He is more interested in what the people are doing - the activities, the commerce, the auditable figures.
So why do we love them? Why do I love them? Is it because they are raw, undisciplined and charismatically immediate? Is it that, despite the inconsistencies and seemingly rambling accounts ,the characters come across to the reader as being real, having a life and credibility that we can believe in?
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders came first, in January 1722. For years it was thought (or possibly hoped) that this was actually a penitent Newgate rogue's biography, such as were often published around the times of public executions detailing the lives and crimes of the criminal, ending with their final confession. I guess that's a credit to the authentic voice Defoe created. The novel is one long uninterrupted text - chapters weren't commonly used at the time - but this compliments the sense of the narrative flowing out of Moll, even if it doesn't help those who can only read it during commutes to and from work! It's broadly split into four sections: childhood and early years; wife and whore; thief; wealthy 'penitent' transported felon.
For anyone looking for salacious tales there's nothing racy about her times as a wife or a whore - Defoe is shy on bedroom details. Readers should be prepared to have their patience tried at times - husbands and children come and go, seemingly without much of an emotional bond, only financial implications. After each marriage or affair she claims to be friendless and alone in London and not know anyone, which we know is not true - most of her children are there for a start, living with whoever she's left them with. Because Moll can't be happy or content until she has enough money to be untouchable she fails to see how fortunate she is for much of her life that she always has a nest egg tucked away and is never totally penniless and at society's mercy.
What is evident, though, is that Defoe gives 'samples' of situations throughout Moll's life. Whereas a later author would be more likely to expand each occurrence to show life and character in more depth, they'd probably find they'd have to include less incidents (or spread them over several books). Defoe gives us more action or headline detail but only occasionally expands on any of it: so we get in depth reportage of Colchester, and the third marriage to her brother, and the pain of her disposing of one child to her satisfaction, and a sample selection of her thefts - particularly the one she is caught for.
Maybe the intention is that the reader can extrapolate from these and 'fill in the gaps' elsewhere. That would make this a very interactive text. Or maybe I'm granting Defoe too much skill and artistry?
Also very few characters are given names, most are known by titles only - governess, mother, husband. We tend to grant more importance to characters that have proper names. Defoe is perhaps ensuring that Moll remains the reader's focus by limiting the number of supporting characters that are anything but titled cyphers. Jemy, Moll's Lancashire husband is a key example of this - he is important to the story over all so he gets a name.
Defoe was a deeply religious man, a Dissenter who had suffered much for his beliefs in his life. As an old man he was also very much aware that money was the route to personal comfort, if not necessarily true happiness and satisfaction. We are told by critics that Moll undergoes a Christian repentance and 'rebirth' in Newgate and it is this that saves her and allows her to live a worthwhile existence for the rest of her days. It is difficult to see this conversion, though, as anything more than a tool so she can escape certain death. Once she's wangled herself into transportation instead of execution and she's been reunited with Jemy (husband number four - the only one she truly loved, we are told) there's no real discussion about her beliefs or any hint that she's changing her life in any way other than she's stopped thieving and is living a good life off the money she's made through it and also what's been left her by her mother in Virginia. Maybe this is the irony that many critics claim for the text - that Defoe at 61 or 62 years old has actually decided that money is more important than religion, and he conceals this in what many claim to be a spiritual biography. Indeed in the Preface the 'editor' states 'she liv'd it seems, to be very old; but was not so extraordinary a Penitent as she was at first; it seems only that indeed she always spoke with abhorence of her former Life'. But again I may be allowing Defoe too much conscious skill and artistry here...
For many years it was thought that A Journal of The Plague Year was also an authentic record of the time. Are you sensing a theme here?! Whereas Moll Flanders was 'written by herself' and edited (censored!) by Defoe according to the Preface, the Journal was written by 'HF' and not edited by anyone. It claims to be 'observations or memorials, of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last Great Visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen who continued all the while in London' (title page). It is, quote honestly, a pretty remarkable book. Critics postulate that 'HF' could be Henry Foe, Daniel's uncle who lived and worked in London at the time of the plague. Young Daniel Foe may have spoken to Henry about the period, but whether he made notes and kept them for years before writing them up is anyone's guess. The text is filled with lists and statistics - some more accurate than others - and just bursts with ordinary detail. Defoe won't have made all this up so it's clear he did a fair amount of research and knew his stuff. At the time the threat of plague was still very real so it's likely to have been very much in the public psyche anyway.
The Journal is a random and at times shocking ramble through the streets of London over the months of the plague in 1665. It details people's lives - more so actually than the narrator's life at most points. Generally the people are nameless but the power and credulity with which their episodes are told, the relentless lists of deaths, and the means people use to try to carry on living their normal lives in the face of potentially certain death is both moving and engaging. It's almost like the end of a symphony once it's over - in the silence the audience blearily realise they can now go back to their normal lives, that life carries on.
This is pretty much a book that does what it says on the tin. Like other Defoe works one can argue that it may have been improved if Defoe had the time (or the inclination?) to revise it once completed but maybe a more ordered structure or a linear progression would make it seem less authentic and more controlled? We're all inclined, I think, in our memoirs or when we relate tales in our lives to talk around a subject rather than tell the story from start to finish.
Because the Journal is a historical work and also in many respects a geographical work (detailing old London as it does) the reader may find more benefit from reference to explanatory notes - particularly with the statistics and dates given. For that purpose I would recommend the Oxford Classics edition; Louis Landa provided copious notes in his original 1969 edition and David Roberts has retained these and built on them in his subsequent editions. The Penguin Classics edition doesn't attempt to be anything like as encyclopaedic but it does have a good introductory essay by Cynthia Wall and reprints Anthony Burgess' introduction to the previous Penguin edition from 1966.
If I had to pick three key works by Daniel Defoe for posterity it would be A Journal of The Plague Year, Robinson Crusoe and A Tour Through The Whole Island of Great Britain.
Defoe managed to squeeze another novel in at the end of 1722. This one is commonly, but erroneously in my opinion, thought of as a male version of Moll Flanders. It is The History and Remarkable Life of The Truly Honourable Colonel Jacque, Commonly Called Colonel Jack. And it's commonly called simply Colonel Jack these days too - although it's not been readily available in print for a few years now which is possibly a telling statement on its popularity and appeal. Both Samuel Holt Monk and David Roberts in their 1965 and 1989 Oxford Classics editions respectively make cases in favour of Colonel Jack (with some unavoidable admittance of it's shortcomings), but it really is down to the reader at the end of the day and it's difficult not to see this as a hurried mess by a writer getting carried away with his own success. And who can blame him either? It was very popular at the time and ran into several editions very quickly. What we see now, as enlightened early 21st Century readers, is a work which seems to take the worst aspects of Moll Flanders and the Journal and combine them into something messy and lesser.
Again it's one long text from start to finish, but it's even more uneven and rambling than its immediate predecessors. The text doesn't grab and hold the reader in the same way that the other two do, and there's a real sense that it was written and delivered up to the printer in real time, so to speak. There are careless errors, such as the title page: 'married four Wives, and five of them prov'd Whores', Jack's pickpocket tutor Robin a few pages later becomes Will and stays Will until he hangs. It's not clear that Defoe knew where he was going with this story and after tidying everything up satisfactorily in Virginia he then adds a coda about trade missions to Mexico which are done purely out of greed. There's a sense, actually, that Defoe realised he'd finished his tale without occasion for Jack's repentance. Rather than go back and re-write earlier sections he tacks this on at the end instead. If the copy was being delivered straight to the printer he wouldn't have had the opportunity to revise what he'd already submitted, so he was stuck. But throughout Jack is at worst a willing accomplice to some roguish activities and at best he cares very much for the people he steals from. He is careful to show us Major Jack and Captain Jack, his 'brothers' against whom he is a much better person, and he doesn't mistreat any of his wives as long as they remain faithful so it could well be argued that here is a character who doesn't need to repent as he's always had a sense of what's innately good. But that's me looking at it from a secular 21st Century viewpoint.
The obvious parallels with Moll Flanders: they are both 'edited' accounts presented by a nameless third person, both are set around Virginia plantations and have a focus on financial wealth to provide happiness; there's a spurious Religious repentance; both contain accounts of thieving in London; neither have known their parents; both keep comprehensive lists of stolen items and money; there are regular mentions that supporting characters' stories would make great books on their own; both have the desire to always be beholden to someone else (a governess or a tutor, for example) and both central characters are very long-lived.
I wonder if Defoe ever thought about writing the stories of these supporting characters that he mentions? If so it would have made more sense for Colonel Jack to be the story of Jemy from Moll Flanders, building on that novel's success in the same way that he'd continued Robinson Crusoe. Whereas I felt a bond with Moll, an understanding of her dilemmas, I never felt that with Jack at all. There's a false sanctimoniousness about him from the start and it's difficult to believe that a boy raised as he was would have been so naive about life - particularly considering how his 'brother' Jacks turned out. The book appears to be promising something that perhaps Defoe can't stomach - a full-blown, bad behaviour male rogue biography. Being a male-dominated world there is little that isn't open to Jack, but this may have been unpleasant to Defoe, so he makes Jack poor and homeless, and a good boy amongst others who are much worse.
Immediately I found myself mistrusting Jack and also mistrusting Defoe. The textual errors made me mistrust Defoe more than Jack, for whom I didn't feel any empathy. Jack says he doesn't like thieving, then thieves and is very good at it. He's not interested in soldiering but is then happy to sign up to fight in armies on foreign shores when he doesn't have to, simply because a war is there at the same time as he is. He's not interested in women until one takes a vague interest in him, then he's hardly ever without one again. It's ticking boxes, crossing things off a list again as Defoe goes through his 'menu' - only it lacks consistency.
There's an inadvertent challenge to the reader in the first section of this book. Jack has gained around £60 through pick-pocketing yet he doesn't have anywhere to put the money so he has to keep it with him at all times, safe. He doesn't have an overcoat, or pockets without holes. He talks at length of this dilemma and what the other street boys would do if they found he had so much money. But surely £60 in sovereigns, shillings, pennies & farthings is going to:
1) weigh him down considerably, and
2) make him jangle like nobody's business!
He is able to leave it with a kindly person in the end, with whom he has already deposited £50 for safe keeping and from whom he even gets interest paid on the amount! But it's another aspect of the narrative that could be put down to laziness or carelessness on the part of Defoe and it serves to further weaken the reader's faith in both him and Jack.
About half way through the novel Jack's 'tutor' (a transported felon who is working on his plantation and simultaneously educating Jack) essentially takes the same view as the 'editor' of Moll Flanders does in the Preface: 'In view of Death, Men are fill'd with Horror of Soul, and immediately they call that Repentance which I doubt is too often mistaken; being only a kind of Anguish in the Soul, which breeds a Grief for the Punishment that is to be suffer'd; an Amazement founded upon the dreadful View of of what is to follow' (p.166). Again we ask is Defoe being consciously ironic here? Is he challenging the reader not to believe either the tutor's repentance or Jack's first wife's, or Jack's himself when it comes at the end? Or is he making a general social comment on all the gallows conversions at Tyburn and elsewhere?
Having read Smollett's Ferdinand Count Fathom I can appreciate how a male rogue biography cataloguing many crimes and told with force and gusto can be tasteless, but I think the key qualifier about Colonel Jack for me is that Defoe embarked on something he couldn't deliver - or possibly didn't have the nerve to see through forcefully. For his next and final novel he returned to a female central character (Roxana, 1724) and although parts of that are more challenging and dark he is again showing the struggle of a woman in a man's world and is, in effect, able to hide behind his own society. In Colonel Jack he may have risked showing up the dark underside of a male dominated world too starkly and I think he pulled his punches - but too late after he'd already signed on the publisher's dotted line and had to deliver something regardless.
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