Moll Flanders Daniel Defoe

Reveals herself, though the word could also be interpreted as implying that she puts on a false show.

Editing and expurgating.

Taste.

The meaning drawn from a passage as it applies to life.

Purged.

Warning.

To come.

For centuries, London’s principal court for criminal proceedings; Newgate Prison was located next door.

The gallows steps and the hanging noose.

Name for institutions that housed the orphaned, the ill, the insane, and even the criminal.

Linen fabric.

One of London’s central markets.

The sentences of pregnant women were postponed until and somewhat beyond delivery.

Town about 50 miles northeast of London, in the county of Essex.

Take a position as a household servant.

Wool yarn.

By sewing.

Scheme or plan.

Headpieces of lace.

Refined.

Scorned; disdained.

In the mid-seventeenth century a guinea was worth 20 shillings, or one pound.

Agreement.

Counted.

Neckband.

Defoe pretends to conceal a prominent townsperson’s name.

Covering to protect or disguise the face.

Village close to London on the eastern road out of the city.

Strategies or schemes.

Consternation.

Meetings, with a decided sexual overtone.

Delusions.

Small coin that had been discontinued and was worthless.

Since beauty attracts potential husbands, Robin speaks of it in terms of property.

Teasing.

Trivialize.

The name plays upon the eponymous naming of characters in so many seventeenth-century stage comedies.

Confused.

Divert.

Passage recorded in John Ray’s A Collection of English Proverbs (1678).

Suspect.

Circumstance.

Behaved.

Broached.

Conniving trap.

According to prescribed methods of military attack.

The part of an estate that can pass down through the woman’s line.

Consideration.

Not willingly, as a staked bear baited by dogs.

Virgin.

Eager, or filled.

Drunk.

Intercourse.

Improved financially.

Conveniently; beneficially.

Well treated, with marriage as the goal.

Look good and graceful bearing a sword.

Attendant who rides the lead horse on the left.

Part of clerical garb worn around the neck.

City about 60 miles northeast of London.

Dandy.

Serious.

Civil writ for the seizure of goods.

Meaning “where I was not known.”

Self-reproaches.

Petty officers on a merchant ship, in charge of maintenance and other tasks.

Remain unclaimed or unsold.

Beneficial.

With haughtiness and arrogance.

Aware.

People to perform a function; in this case, gossips.

Made the representation to the women that they could not proceed as they wished.

Neighborhood just east of the Tower of London.

Lacked.

Also called Redriff; a London neighborhood on the south bank of the Thames.

Scorned.

Resort.

Above the need to account for his character.

Contradicted.

Particular; careful.

The expression refers to death by hanging.

Impure material.

Revealed.

Limited restitution upon forfeiture of money owed.

Flows by the original Virginia colony at Yorktown.

Militia.

Branded as a transported criminal on the inside of the hand.

Winning the sympathy of.

Temperament.

Condemned.

Stroke.

Called upon; commanded.

Tactic.

Defoe continues to pretend to keep real names secret.

Emotional outbursts; the name derives from the rhapsodic poets of ancient Greece.

Until death.

Verification.

Compromise.

Pestered.

Broaching.

Prodded.

Signature.

Discredit.

Small shot.

Terms of the letter.

Distracted; manic.

With a rope.

Moderately.

On the southern coast of Ireland in County Cork.

Cracked the main mast.

Seaport southwest of London.

Associate in business matters.

Adding to her reserves.

Spa city west of London famous for its hot springs.

Temptations; traps.

Autumn.

Sexually illicit.

House of sexual liaisons, if not actual prostitution.

Reasons for reproof

Sexual relations.

Particular.

Truly mad, as compared to the moderate distemper of Moll’s brother/husband.

Enrich.

Lack.

Restricted.

Up two flights from the main floor.

Brought up the subject with.

Disgusted.

Spend carefully.

Supply his food.

Small town about 15 miles southwest of Bath.

Bed on which a mattress filled with straw is laid across wooden pallets.

But for.

Town about 30 miles north of Bath.

Happenstance; fortune.

More friends than lovers.

Referring to her spotless moral behavior.

Meaning too close to breaking the Seventh Commandment, which condemns adultery.

Rule.

Self-reproaches.

Sexual relations.

The name is a pun, since “Cleave” is slang for a loose woman.

Neighborhood in west London on the north bank of the Thames.

Town about 40 miles west of London.

Unintentional.

Violated.

London neighborhood later made famous by early-twentieth-century writer Virginia Woolf and her circle, the so-called Bloomsbury Group.

Allowed to.

Inflammation of the lung cavity; often accompanies pneumonia.

Employ

Remainder.

Out of bed and moving.

Outside and about.

Expressions; attitudes.

Repentance.

As is; without stipulations.

In our situations.

Represented; made claim.

Stock.

Silver serving sets and utensils.

Applying heavy makeup, usually over a white base.

Announced; printed up as a notice.

From England’s northern shires.

Accountings; receipts.

Miscounted.

Agent who would handle the financial transactions; but the implication is “husband.”

Not exhibiting a personal stake in the matter.

Apology.

Complicated, troublesome.

Put out public proclamations renouncing any debts she rings up under his name.

A jest, but with the implication of marriage as a comic ending.

In the event that.

More receptive to his offer.

Reached his central point.

Northern shire just below Yorkshire.

Improve.

Subsequent narration.

Paid for.

Town 20 miles east of Liverpool.

Estate.

Carriage.

In eighteenth-century locution, one’s person is one’s property.

Part of his estate that she could pass on through her heirs.

Protective tactics.

Town in the west of England, close to the Welsh border.

Rocky outcropping across the River Mersey from Liverpool.

Main disembarkation point in Wales for sea voyages to Ireland.

Defoe is anachronistic: The Bank of England was not founded until 1694.

Commanded.

Basis.

Horses, carriage, and liveried footmen.

Large city in central England.

Loot.

Intimate.

Made love.

Take up as a highwayman.

Town about 35 miles northwest of London.

Handling of affairs.

Hospital and house of correction in London.

Requiring the most finesse; difficult to effect.

Guarantee of support, either personal or financial.

Fever.

Had objections to.

Contemporary slang for midwife and bawd.

Heavy, dark thoughts.

Buildings were then identified by hanging insignias rather than by numbers.

Aware.

The theater district of Drury Lane was known for its traffic in prostitution.

Detest.

For the good.

Preliminary finding for divorce.

Reveal.

Old lady.

Kind of anxiety believed to be caused by bad air flow within the body’s organs.

Imagination.

Town about 20 miles north of London.

Deeply; worrisomely

Troubling.

Cheaper mode of transportation carrying freight as well as passengers.

It is unclear whether Moll means Stone Place in Cheshire or the more likely town of Stone in Staffordshire.

Town in Buckinghamshire about 50 miles northwest of London.

Town very close to Stony-Stratford.

Ordered.

Out.

Not in one’s right mind. ‡Rough leather dyed green.

Moll seems to be omitting several of her lovers in this count.

Worry.

Prayer book of the Anglican Church.

Contrived concern; all expression and no substance.

Bows made of ribbon.

Headpiece of linen lace originally made with bone bobbins.

Secretive.

Opposite.

Warnings shouted by a pursing crowd.

Local townsfolk assisting the constable.

The moment in the narrative that follows when Moll tests the accuracy of her proposition.

Limited; not speculative.

Carriage, horses, and liveried servants.

Vital organs.

Moved out of.

From the Bible (Proverbs 30:8-9): “Give me neither poverty nor riches ... lest I be poor, and steal” (King James Version).

Market street in London near the Royal Exchange.

Alter.

Neighborhood on the River Thames, then one of the worst in central London.

Small bowl.

In an unsafe district near the center of London; in the passage that follows Moll trolls some of the most dangerous parts of the city.

Grounds of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, in the Smithfield area of London.

Reluctant toward.

In the financial district of central London, near the Royal Exchange.

Glossy silk.

Separate.

Profit.

London neighborhood north of the Thames and east of the center. ∥Foresight.

Strategic decision.

Not in particular need of money.

Set her up as a prostitute.

Moll goes into the booth without hesitation.

Need.

Finessed.

Cloth and fabric district of London near St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Paid employee.

White cotton fabric.

Pardon, sometimes general, extended by a judge of a circuit court.

Pumping water.

Selling information to authorities.

Quality linen paper.

Rough handling upon apprehension.

Import restrictions had been imposed to protect local lace manufacturers.

Who would sell the Flanders lace on the black market.

Officer of the court; in this case, he is on the take.

Set new terms.

Fairly.

Revealed their whereabouts for a price to other black marketers.

Place for Dissenters, or Protestants who did not conform to the doctrines of the Church of England, to meet for worship; Defoe himself was a Dissenter.

Pattern; literally, the thread that leads one out of a labyrinth.

Provides the clinching case.

A brief look.

Caught red-handed.

Right on her heels.

Commit themselves to appear as prosecution witnesses.

Consistent in its terms (even if a lie).

On horseback.

Foresight.

Upset her.

Room where lace is sold.

For centuries, London’s principal court for criminal proceedings; Newgate Prison was located next door.

Tab, or account.

Suffered an ill turn.

Trade.

Covered walks, arcades.

Gaming houses or booths.

Notorious location for prostitutes.

Thoroughly.

Men of fashion wore full wigs in Restoration England.

Gateway separating the area of the Strand from the old City of London.

Disgustingly excessive.

From the Bible (Proverbs 7:22-23).

Bearing.

Syphilis.

Benefit; a plus.

Waistband pocket in gentlemen’s trousers.

Rank of honor, entitling a commoner to the official title “Sir.”

Once a village northwest of London, now a well-to-do section of the city.

Presentation.

Forwardly.

Extort money.

Took a great chance in terms of contracting a venereal disease.

Concern.

Sedan chair borne on poles by two carriers.

No charge.

Predisposed; persuaded.

He did not maintain Moll as a mistress.

Dispute.

Of common cloth.

Once a town north of London, now a borough of the city.

First thing to pop into her head.

Stratford, Bow, and Cheston were stops on the coach lines out of the city.

Ships trading at English coastal ports.

Containers for goods; a hamper is a wicker box.

Invoices and freight numbers.

Rough linen fabric.

Unit of measurement approximating a yard.

High-quality glasses made with fine flint.

Rows; misunderstandings.

In this instance, sneak thieves.

Lifted wares.

Speak, with the implication of bargaining.

Full-time agent of the courts, and often a thug.

Grain broker.

The general law of the land.

Unusually.

Mourning clothes worn after the first year of widowhood that are less stark than those worn initially.

Represented.

Sum paid to obtain temporary release but forfeited if the journeyman were to fail to appear for the execution of the sentence.

Court for Middlesex County in the City of London.

Unscrupulous lawyer who picks up clients by the wayside.

Generate more heat for a lawsuit.

Wore accessories.

Anger.

Neat; not slovenly.

Barmen.

Biweekly London journal of public and official notices.

Consorted.

Stamping device for imprinting images on coins.

Diwy up their take with a fourth party.

Riverfront district east of the Tower of London.

The New Exchange, a popular seventeenth-century shopping venue.

Package.

Fashionable park in Westminster near the Houses of Parliament.

Pall Mall, a fashionable street along the northern border of St. James’s Park.

In step.

Barracks near Whitehall Palace.

Market district in central London.

Bet.

Dice are rolled from inside a small box.

Rambling or traveling; better road conditions existed in summer months.

Spa towns in Kent and Surrey, respectively.

Autumn fairs in the north and east of England, respectively.

Trick.

Town in Suffolk, north and east of London.

Another town in Suffolk.

Tipsy.

Successfully.

Large passenger vessel heading to Ipswich, a town in East Suffolk.

Boat that makes regular freight, mail, and passenger runs between two ports of call.

Soap balls.

Head.

Within.

Stations to hire riding horses.

Some explanation.

The hanging gallows at Tyburn, near London’s Hyde Park.

Ironic slang for Newgate Prison.

Sentence of death.

Defoe noted that this was a reference to the bell at St. Sepulchre’s Church, which tolls upon execution day.

The chaplain, who, as in this instance, served both the prisoners and the authorities.

Incapable of speech.

Moll was born in Newgate Prison.

In a heightened state.

By local citizens.

Of great reputation.

Try his hand at highway robbery.

Hanged.

Indictment.

Cloth.

Revealed themselves.

St. Mary of Bethlehem, hospital for the insane in London.

Postings for execution.

Death row at Newgate Prison.

Presiding judge in Moll’s case.

Delay in execution of the sentence.

Slander.

Cheered.

One of the four main wings of Newgate Prison.

Lacked.

Moll, and Defoe, are wrong here: Two witnesses are necessary only in prosecution of treason.

He has been frying bigger criminal fish.

Unique.

Those who supply and feed cattle or sheep herds.

Moll, and Defoe, must mean Oxfordshire, because that is where Burford Fair was held. ‡Town in the northwest of England.

Equanimity.

Money for passage.

At anchor in the harbor at Deptford, near the conjunction of the Thames and the River Ravensbourne.

Raised anchor.

Cove on the River Thames near Greenwich.

Loose dress.

Accoutrements.

Deal.

Money was worth less than goods in the tidewater colonies of America.

Large cabin on the upper deck near the stern of the ship, often used by a ship’s officers.

On the River Thames about 20 miles southeast of London.

Open coastal waters off Kent.

The Shannon.

Deal.

Secured her plantation to cover payment of the funds entailed.

Interchangeable with colony at this time of American history.

In their employ.

In England dogs pursue the quarry in recreational hunting, so the notion of a man going into the woods in search of prey is novel to Moll.

French gold coins worth slightly less than a British pound.

One employed to write out legal contracts and notices.

Present her claim.

Spanish coins marked with the figure “eight” and worth about 4½ shillings.

Rifles for bird shooting.

Lengths of cloth.

Imperceptibly.