Moll

Name: Moll
Rating: 3.12 (8 reviews)

by Alexander Cordell

First published 1990

Amazon

2.5(8)

Moll Walbee survives by theft and deception before reinventing herself in Paris as a woman of rank. Her fortunes become entangled with Richard Carling, a former soldier and highwayman, and the pair are pushed from criminal society into a wider adventure that crosses England and the ocean towards Australia.
Cordell uses Moll’s shifting identities to explore the harsh legal and social world of the Georgian poor, where transportation could remove offenders to the other side of the world. The sea journey and colonial destination widen the novel from picaresque crime into survival fiction. Romance remains important, but it is tested by class, punishment and the difficulty of creating a new life when the law has already defined who a person is supposed to be.