Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (Oxford World's Classics) Paperback by Daniel Defoe (Author), John Mullan (Editor) (OXford University Press)

Roxana is the young and beautiful wife of a foolish man who, after losing his business and money that he inherited from his father, abandons her with five children. For a woman in this situation in the early 18th century there are not many choices, but Roxana falls into one of the least desirable, that of a mistress. While she is quite successful, in terms of gaining a succession of wealthy benefactors, her own personal wealth and securing her financial future, it is at the expense of her relationship with her children, and their happiness as in order to embark on her career she has to first palm them off to relatives with limited resources.

Defoe describes well the limited choices, and the consequences, faced by women who are abandoned and expected to make a living to survive with no employment opportunities, or help from family, the government or charity. When she manages to amass a tidy fortune and has an honourable offer of marriage, which she can accept as she understands her husband is dead, she baulks at the thought of having to give over her funds to her husband and risk being placed in the same penniless situation again and so rejects the offer.
She is unable to reunite with her children and shows little interest in doing so. Through her relationships she has three or four more children and they are suitably cared for, but do not know their parents. She does not seem to regret this and while this may seem strange to our modern view it possibly reflects the high child mortality rate of the time and the author being a man rather than a mother.

The book gives an insight into the difficulties faced by women and their marriages. Defoe's views on marriage come through in the narrative as well as his views on poverty and its effects on moral choices. Roxana is a strong and likeable character who makes the best she can out of her circumstances but is not sensible enough, due to vanity and greed, to change her course when given the opportunity to do so. Ultimately she regrets her choices and ends her life in misery. Roxana is an early example of a literary tragedy.