Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress

Description

Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress was Daniel Defoe's last and darkest novel; the autobiography of a woman who has traded her virtue, at first for survival, and then for fame and fortune. The full title of the book is 'The Fortunate Mistress: Or, A History of the Life and Vast Variety of Fortunes of Mademoiselle de Beleau, Afterwards Called the Countess de Wintselsheim, in Germany, Being the Person known by the Name of the Lady Roxana, in the Time of King Charles II'. Its narrator tells the story of her own 'wicked' life as the mistress of rich and powerful men. A resourceful adventuress, she is also an unforgiving analyst of her own susceptibilities, who tells us of the price she pays for her successes. Endowed with many seductive skills, she is herself seduced: by money, by dreams of rank, and by the illusion that she can escape her own past.

Part of Anne Haight's List of Banned Books.

This book has 226 pages in the PDF version, and was originally published in 1724. This edition was first published in 1904.

Production notes: This ebook of Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress was published by Global Grey ebooks on the 9th November 2018, and updated on the 23rd March 2021. The artwork used for the cover is 'Gypsy with tambourine' by Alois Hans Schram.