The History And Remarkable Life Of The Truly Honourable Colonel Jack
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: No markings
A landmark work of early English fiction, The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jack chronicles the turbulent journey of a London street urchin who rises from a life of petty crime and poverty to achieve wealth, respectability, and a measure of moral redemption. Defoe constructs his narrative with the same gritty realism and first-person immediacy that defined Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe, immersing readers in the criminal underworld of 18th-century England before transporting Jack across the Atlantic to the plantations of Virginia and the battlefields of Europe. The novel argues, with characteristic Puritan earnestness, that conscience and the capacity for self-improvement are never entirely extinguished by circumstance or sin, giving the story a moral weight that elevates it beyond mere adventure. Defoe's prose is direct and unsentimental, presenting Jack's repeated failures — including multiple disastrous marriages — with an ironic detachment that is as entertaining as it is instructive. A foundational text in the history of the novel, it remains a vivid and surprisingly modern portrait of ambition, guilt, and the relentless pursuit of social legitimacy.
Author: Daniel Defoe
Format: Hardback
Published: 1947, Hamish Hamilton
Genre: Classic fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: No markings
A landmark work of early English fiction, The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Colonel Jack chronicles the turbulent journey of a London street urchin who rises from a life of petty crime and poverty to achieve wealth, respectability, and a measure of moral redemption. Defoe constructs his narrative with the same gritty realism and first-person immediacy that defined Moll Flanders and Robinson Crusoe, immersing readers in the criminal underworld of 18th-century England before transporting Jack across the Atlantic to the plantations of Virginia and the battlefields of Europe. The novel argues, with characteristic Puritan earnestness, that conscience and the capacity for self-improvement are never entirely extinguished by circumstance or sin, giving the story a moral weight that elevates it beyond mere adventure. Defoe's prose is direct and unsentimental, presenting Jack's repeated failures — including multiple disastrous marriages — with an ironic detachment that is as entertaining as it is instructive. A foundational text in the history of the novel, it remains a vivid and surprisingly modern portrait of ambition, guilt, and the relentless pursuit of social legitimacy.