Daniel Defoe published The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders in 1722 after a long career writing non-fiction. Many critics have speculated that Defoes story of a beautiful and greedy woman who turns to crime is not a novel in the true sense but a work combining biography and fiction. Defoe (and others) wrote numerous accounts of various women in early 18th-century London named Moll who made their fame as thieves and pickpockets, and the criminal records of that period reveal the accounts of women who were arrested for stealing. Many critics and historians argue that a woman named Elizabeth Atkins, a notorious thief who died in prison in 1723, was one of Defoes inspirations for the character of Moll Flanders. ...