Oxford University Press bungles title and cover illustration of Roxana (post 6) by Daniel Defoe (post 7): Protagonist is not “Roxana,” and her face is not “painted”

The Oxford University Press edition is highly commendable. It uses the original 1724 text, not the many later, unauthorized revisions. And it has an excellent Introduction and Textual History.

However, it disregards the novel’s text in its use of the unauthorized, revised title, “Roxana” instead of the original title, “The Fortunate Mistress.” And its cover illustration, the portrait of a woman who is obviously wearing makeup, is also at odds with the text.

When Daniel Defoe published his novel with the title, “The Fortunate Mistress,” he knew what he was doing. His protagonist is an extremely fortunate mistress, and remains fortunate until the very last paragraph, which appears tacked on to appease moral censors.

As the Introduction and text make clear, “Roxana” is not the protagonist’s name, but only a nickname for whore, which, on one occasion, was called out by men watching her do an exotic dance. If the publisher wanted to retain that name in the title, because that is the title by which the novel is best known, the least they should have done was to make it “The Roxana,” meaning The Whore. But the novel is not really about being a whore, but about a woman who was very fortunate in her career as a mistress.

Moreover, the title Roxana, especially if you skip the Introduction, misleads the reader into thinking that the protagonist uses that name, or any name at all. And if you don’t realize that the protagonist does not use any name, you miss the salient feature of this novel that distinguishes it from most others.

As to the cover illustration: It is a running joke in this novel that the protagonist is so beautiful that she does not need to “paint” (use makeup). Time and again, she declares to her clients that she does not paint, and gives them a glass of hot water and a cloth with which to rub her cheek as hard as they wish, to prove that her perfect complexion is not due to any makeup. They are amazed.

Daniel Defoe. Roxana. Oxford University Press, 1724/2008.