18th Century English Literature Reading Event

It's June! And it's also 18th Century English Lit reading event, hosted by O from Délaissé. Click here to see the master post.

I picked "Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defore as my novel to read this month. For some reason I did not add "Robinson Crusoe" to my Classics Club list back when I was putting it together; I guess the prospect of being stuck on a deserted island didn't appeal to me at the time. So Moll it is.

 

In the back of my copy it says:

 

"Based on the first edition of 1722, this volume includes a chronology, notes on currenty and maps of London and Virginia in the late seventeenth century."

 

From "Moll Flanders".
Image from here.

If there's something I love, it's the maps in the books (and I believe I am not the only one here). And indeed - there are three maps included in the end fo the book - "London in the late seventeenth century", "Smithfield market and vicinity" and "Chesapeake Bay (Virginia and Maryland in 1680)". Oh, look, the book just got a lot tastier :)

 

I am worried (but not overly) about the language. Browsing through the first few pages I already noticed excessive use of the capital letters, which concerns me. May it be noted that in general, English uses capital letter more often than my native tongue - for example, in Estonian (and Finnish), langages (and much more, like holidays) are not marked with capital letter, but instead "inglise/englanti", so this is why abundant use of capitalisation can confuse me.

 

I shall start with "Moll" after I finish my current classic, "Villette" (which is going very smoothly at the moment). I am positive I will be able to finish "Moll" this month and write the review by the end of the month (so not to repeat what happened to "Germinal" - I finished the book but it took me a long while to write about it).

 



Daniel Defoe.
Image from here.