Elizabeth Adkins

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Elizabeth Adkins was a prominent figure in London's underworld during the early 18th century as a prostitute, pickpocket and a thief whose aliases included Mary or Maria Godson although she is best known as Moll King. It has been speculated that she, among others, was the basis for the main character in Daniel Defoe's novel Moll Flanders.

In 1718, she was apprehended stealing a gold watch from a gentlewoman at St. Anne's Church in Soho and sentenced to seven years transportation. She was caught while attempting to sneak back into the country from the American colonies and sentenced to death however, while she later won a reprieve, she remained imprisoned in Newgate Prison throughout the autumn of 1721 where she may have met Daniel Defoe who had been visiting his friend journalist Nathaniel Mist.

[edit] Further reading

  • Defoe, Daniel and George A. Starr. The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-19-283403-7
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../e/l/i/Elizabeth_Adkins_7390.html"