The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continued variety for three-score years, besides her childhood, was twelve year a whore, five times a wife (where of once to her own brother), twelve year a thief, eight year a transported felon in Virginia at last grew rich, lived honest, and died a penitent.
"When I look back on my childhood I wonder how I managed to survive at all. It was, of course, a miserable childhood: the happy childhood is hardly worth your while. Worse than the ordinary miserable childhood is the miserable Irish childhood, and worse yet is the miserable Irish Catholic childhood." So begins the luminous memoir of Frank McCourt, born in Depression-era Brooklyn to recent Irish immigrants and...