After the success of Robinson Crusoe and its follow-ups, Daniel Defoe published Moll Flanders in 1722. It’s an episodic, picaresque novel that recounts Moll’s long life of misadventures. It has a journalistic, plain style, with unadorned, prosaic speech that flows naturally from story to story. The novel is written as a purported autobiography over the course of the narrator’s life...