The Thieves' Opera
- ISBN-10
- 0151003645
- ISBN-13
- 9780151003648
- Category
- Biography & Autobiography / Cultural, Ethnic & Regional / General
- Pages
- 304
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1998
- Publisher
- Harcourt Brace
- Author
- Lucy Moore
Description
Georgian London was a city of contrasts: Its bourgeois elegance and refinement thrived amid filth and foul smells, decadence and depravity. Crime was everywhere - from pickpockets and prostitutes in the city center to plundering highwaymen on the outskirts. Jonathan Wild came to dominate London's criminal underworld in part by orchestrating the theft of personal goods and then offering them back to their rightful owners - at a price. The reputation and credibility of this self-styled "Thief-taker General" were such that, in 1720, the Privy Council sought his advice on how to deal with the rising crime rate in England's capital city. Jack Sheppard, on the other hand, was the archetypal idle apprentice, who spent his free time drinking, gambling, and whoring in London's Covent Garden, eventually falling into a life of petty crime. When Sheppard refused to work for Wild (as almost every other thief was forced to do), Wild had him arrested, tried, and convicted. But his extraordinary ability to escape from prison - repeatedly and against striking odds - made Sheppard a celebrated folk hero. As popular opinion - and, with it, money and power - swayed away from the thief-taker to the housebreaker, tension between the two spiraled to a dramatic climax. The Thieves' Opera is an eminently readable work of popular history that blends scholarship with the best of the storyteller's art.
Get the book
Similar books
-
Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of a Citizen of New-york, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853,...
By Solomon NorthupTwelve Years a Slave: Narrative of a Citizen of New-york, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853,...
-
Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton: For Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail
By Daniel DraytonPersonal Memoir of Daniel Drayton: For Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (For Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail
-
Nothing Too Good for a Cowboy
By Richmond Pearson HobsonA true adventure story of a man who built a four-million acre cattle empire in the remote ranges of the British Columbia Interior.
-
African Americans at War: An Encyclopedia
By Jonathan SutherlandWilliams, La Guardia, and Rosenberg were noted liberals. Randolph opened by unequivocally demanding that the president issue an ex- ecutive order banning segregation and racial discrimination in the defense industry.
-
历代寓湘人物传略
By 王晓天, 王国宇王陛下:先时,秦为亡道,天下诛之。大王先得秦王,定关中,于天下功最多。存亡定危,救败继绝,以安万民,功盛德厚。又加惠于诸侯王有功者,使得立社稷。地分已定,而位号比拟,亡上下之分,大王功德之著,于后世不宣。昧死再拜上皇帝尊号。......汉王曰:诸侯王幸以为 ...
-
湖南女杰传略
By 王国宇王王(?—1829),字湘梅,湘潭人,清女诗人。王氏家族在湘潭早有名气,只是到王父亲王之骏这一代已渐趋衰落,为了摆脱窘境,王之骏便自湘潭移风乡徙居湖南省城长沙,改以行医为业,因其医术高超、医德高尚而名声大振,许多湘潭后辈名流,如尚书贺长龄、史学家黄本骥等 ...
-
Bill Clay: A Political Voice at the Grass Roots
By William L. Clay... 235–236 ; loses re - election attempt , 248 Cook , Blondell , 88 Cook , Virginia , 299 CORE , 58–61 , 91 , 213 ; Jefferson Bank protests , 108–129 Crawford , Curtis , 166 Crumpton , Harold , 311 Cummings , James , 225-226 Cunningham ...
-
In the Land of Invisible Women: A Female Doctor's Journey in the Saudi Kingdom
By Qanta AhmedA strikingly honest look into Islamic culture?--in particular women and Islam?--and what it takes for one woman to recreate herself in the land of invisible women.Unexpectedly denied a visa to...
-
Ella Fitzgerald: The Complete Biography
By Stuart NicholsonStuart Nicholson's biography of Ella Fitzgerald is considered a classic in jazz literature. Drawing on original documents, interviews, and new information, Nicholson draws a complete picture of Fitzgerald's professional and...
-
Freedom's Lawmakers: A Directory of Black Officeholders During Reconstruction
By Eric FonerThe Reconstruction period was one of great changes in American political and social life. Within a few years of the end of the Civil War and the demise of slavery,...