In one of them he captured Roxana, the daughter of Oxyartes, whom he made his wife.
There is also a Quaker who plays a very creditable part in Roxana (1724), and Defoe seems to have been well affected to the Friends.
Moll Flanders and The Fortunate Mistress (Roxana), which followed in 1724, have subjects of a rather more than questionable character, but both display the remarkable art with which Defoe handles such subjects.
She displays throughout much greater real refinement of feeling than the more highflying Roxana, and is at any rate flesh and blood, if the flesh be somewhat frail and the blood somewhat hot.
The art of both stories is great, and that of the episode of the daughter Susannah in Roxana is consummate; but the transitions of the later plot are less natural than those in Moll Flanders.