Roxana The Fortunate Mistress

Published in 1724, Roxana is Defoe's last novel and his most important work after Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders. The principal theme is the moral deterioration of its heroine - the beautiful daughter of a French Protestant refugee. Abandoning her husband and five children for the glamorous life of a courtesan, she sacrifices personal integrity for wordly opportunity. In her ultimate defeat - she is imprisoned for debt and dies in poverty - Defoe develops the themes of retribution and the complex relationship in 18th-century society between public respectability and private corruption.Defoe, Daniel is the author of 'Roxana The Fortunate Mistress', published 1982 under ISBN 9780140431490 and ISBN 0140431497.