San Antonio College Library

Composed in the wake of Defoe's newfound literary success, Moll Flanders tells the story of an eighteenth century woman who takes fate into her own hands by developing her skills as a thief and con artist. Traveling back and forth between England and the United States (or from one con to another), Moll's story rejects the antiquated notion of female dependence and demonstrates the full potential of a woman's endurance and autonomy.

"The nineteenth century was haunted by crime, by its signs, stories and the shapes of institutions designed for its regulation. That haunting persists today in a popular fear of crime that shapes political agendas, and through images presented in the media. This book analyses the legal and aesthetic discourses that combine to shape the image of the criminal, and that image's contemporary endurance." "Peter Hutchings examines a variety of texts, from...

Moving from one work to the next, Schwarz (English, Cornell U.) summarizes and discusses the vast oeuvre of Damon Runyon's fiction. Emphasis is given to the recurring motifs of gambling, vaudeville, and street sensibilities. The roots of these subjects in Runyon's own life and the influence of his representation of New York City on later writers are important themes. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

"As London became the first major city of the nineteenth century, new models of representation emerged in the journalism, poetry, fiction, and social commentary of the period. Simon Joyce argues that such writing reflected a persistent worry about the problem of crime but was never able to contain it. Commentators such as Wordsworth, Dickens, Mayhew, Stevenson, Conan Doyle, Booth, and Wilde all struggled with the same questions about how to represent...