Document Type

Article

Publication Version

Version of Record

Publication Date

Spring 2015

Abstract

Written in the aftermath of the South Sea Bubble collapse of 1720, Daniel Defoe’s The Complete English Tradesman (1726) associates economic survival with the concept of mastery, or “minding the shop.” This concept had been explored in prostitute narratives published earlier in the decade, including Anodyne Tanner’s The Life of the Late Celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Wisebourn (1721), Charles Walker’s Authentick Memoirs of the Life, Intrigues, and Adventures of the Celebrated Sally Salisbury (1723), and Defoe’s Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress (1724). When one reads The Complete English Tradesman in relation to these narratives, the figure of the female sex worker emerges as a model for Defoe’s middle-class masculine ideal. Much like Defoe’s tradesman, the protagonists of post-Bubble prostitute narratives represent an endangered masculinity that strives for mastery within a precarious economic environment. The “ femaleness” of these protagonists—and consequently Defoe’s tradesman—cannot be disregarded, however. Though the prostitute narratives discussed here are male-authored representations of masculine experience, they are also reflections of one of eighteenth-century England’s most fascinating and powerful female figures, a figure associated, albeit loosely, with actual female sex workers. Defoe’s tradesman clearly serves as a masculine ideal, but one that cannot escape its notorious "feminine" literary past.

Publication Title

Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies

Volume

15

Issue

2

First Page

27

Last Page

57

Pages

31

Format

application/pdf

Language

en

DOI of Published Version

10.1353/jem2015.0012

Publisher

University of Pennsylvania Press

Rights

Copyright © 2015 UPenn Press. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of scholarly citation, none of this work may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. For information address the University of Pennsylvania Press, 3905 Spruce Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112.

Comments

This work was published in Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies (2015) 15.2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jem.2015.0012
Posted with permission.

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