# Is "Moll Flanders (The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders)" by Daniel Defoe a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of Moll Flanders (The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders) by Daniel Defoe (W. Chetwood and T. Edling, London, 1722) is identified by: First edition: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c.," published anonymously, London, "Printed for, and Sold by W. The census entry needs correcting on the year.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- First edition: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c.," published anonymously, London, "Printed for, and Sold by W. Chetwood, at Cato's-Head, in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden; and T. Edling, at the Prince's-Arms over-against Exerter-Change in the Strand"; octavo; signatures A-2D8 2E4, with the blank leaf A8 almost always discarded in rebinding (ESTC T70314
- Moore 446
- Furbank & Owens 213
- Rothschild 777
- Sabin 19278)
- The decisive point runs opposite to intuition: the first edition's title page is dated 1721, not 1722, and the Roman numeral is itself garbled — set as "MDDCXXI" — while the book was actually published on 27 January 1722; the volumes reading 1722 on the title page are the second and third editions
- Publisher imprint reads W. Chetwood and T. Edling, London

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Daniel Defoe |
| Publisher | W. Chetwood and T. Edling, London |
| Year | 1722 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | First edition: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c.," published anonymously, London, "Printed for, and Sold by W.… |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
First edition: "The Fortunes and Misfortunes Of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c.," published anonymously, London, "Printed for, and Sold by W. Chetwood, at Cato's-Head, in Russel-Street, Covent-Garden; and T. Edling, at the Prince's-Arms over-against Exerter-Change in the Strand"; octavo; signatures A-2D8 2E4, with the blank leaf A8 almost always discarded in rebinding (ESTC T70314; Moore 446; Furbank & Owens 213; Rothschild 777; Sabin 19278). The decisive point runs opposite to intuition: the first edition's title page is dated 1721, not 1722, and the Roman numeral is itself garbled — set as "MDDCXXI" — while the book was actually published on 27 January 1722; the volumes reading 1722 on the title page are the second and third editions. Defoe's name appears nowhere in the book. The first edition is also the only one with its particular pagination, and it is among the rarest first editions of any major eighteenth-century novel: only two copies are held in UK collections, at the British Library and Trinity College Cambridge. REFUTED: the census claim that the true first is identified by a "two-line imprint" could not be corroborated in any bibliography, catalogue record or dealer description consulted, and must not be used as a test — the garbled 1721/MDDCXXI title-page date is the point that is actually documented.

## Is this the true first?
The census entry needs correcting on the year. The true first is the London edition printed for W. Chetwood and T. Edling with a title page dated 1721, issued 27 January 1722; describing the first simply as "the 1722" inverts the real test, because a 1722 date printed on the title page marks a later edition, not the first. Note also that the imprint spells the second bookseller "T. Edling," whereas the man is recorded as Thomas Edlin. There is no UK/US or original-language precedence issue — Defoe wrote in English and London holds the first. Two further editions followed within 1722, and Dublin and continental reprints follow after; all are later editions at best.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club edition of the 1721/22 octavo exists. Moll Flanders is among the most heavily reprinted English novels, so donor copies are overwhelmingly modern: Modern Library, Penguin, Oxford World's Classics, Norton Critical (ed. Albert J. Rivero), Broadview, Bantam, Dover, and print-on-demand facsimiles struck from ECCO scans. Twentieth-century illustrated editions and the many collected "Novels of Daniel Defoe" sets are reprints; any copy with an ISBN or barcode is not the first.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *Moll Flanders (The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders)* by Daniel Defoe a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/moll-flanders-the-fortunes-and-misfortunes-of-the-famous-mol
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.