Colonel Jacque

Daniel Defoe's Colonel Jacque follows a boy of uncertain birth who grows up among poverty, theft, and shifting chances, yet never loses the restless conviction that he might become a gentleman. Raised by a kind foster-mother and shaped by hardship, Jacque survives as a child pickpocket, then a larger rogue, before being carried through kidnapping, bondage in Virginia, plantation life, and a return to England. His story is both picaresque adventure and moral study, tracing the uneasy balance between vice, ambition, conscience, and self-improvement. Defoe makes Jacque memorable less for charm than for his hard, practical intelligence and relentless drive for advancement. The novel's greatest strength lies in its vivid realism, especially in the early scenes of boyhood poverty and street crime, though the American episodes remain carefully grounded in commerce and imperial life. In Virginia, Jacque's conversations with his tutor awaken a serious sense of providence, gratitude, and religious duty, even as he remains ambitious and unsettled. The narrative ultimately presents a neglected youth whose life warns, instructs, and strangely redeems. This edition also includes Defoe's fierce political satire The True-Born Englishman, a defense of William III and a biting attack on English prejudice, pride, and hostility toward outsiders. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.