Colonel Jack Author:Daniel Defoe, Samuel Holt Monk (Editor) Colonel Jack, it may readily be granted, is a flawed masterpiece. It has never been so popular as Crusoe, nor so acceptable to modern readers as is Moll Flanders. None the less, in the light of recent studies on Defoe's life and thought, studies which have brought us to the verge of being able to get free of Victor... more »ian cliches and to re-evaluate the achievements of this important eighteenth-century writer, it is clear that Colonel Jack is the least ambiguous of all Defoe's novels. It expresses through the characters and their actions the wide range of its author's interests and ideas. Defoe could not have been aware that he had written at once a tale of adventure, a primitive Bildungsroman, and a fable that embodies many of his ideas on human nature and society.« less