Synopsis

The dank, dark cobbled streets of eighteenth-century London harboured a wide variety of rogues. From petty cutpurses and whores to highwaymen and pirates, all did their time at Newgate prison; many saw their last days there.

Lucy Moore, author of the acclaimed study of the lives of Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild, The Thieves’ Opera, takes us deeper into this murky and exciting world, recording the lives and deaths of a cast of lesser-known rogues and rascals.

This fascinating and diverse collection of original writings displays these colourful and often tragic figures in their own words and the words of those who observed them at first hand. The sources range from penny biographies to ballads to satires, each one affording insights into eighteenth-century London’s criminal underworld, and the literary tradition it spawned.
 

ISBN 0-14100-346-4