Con Men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld

by Lucy Moore

An enthralling anthology of 18th-century writings that gives a fascinating insight into the dreadful misdeeds of - and the horrible punishments meeted out to - an array of rogues and criminals, from murderers and swindlers to prostitutes and pirates. Captured in memoirs, letters, ballads and court transcripts are some of the most colourful villains ever to take their last gasp at the hangman's noose, including daring thief Jack Sheppherd, highwayman Dick Turpin and ingenious pickpocket Jenny Diver. Taking us from the backstreets and brothels to Newgate prison and the gallows at Tyburn, this anthology reveals London's murky underworld in all its squalor and exuberance.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Crime, 18th Century, Classics, True Crime

336 pages, Paperback

First published June 19, 2000

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Lucy Moore was born in 1970 and educated in Britain and the United States before reading history at Edinburgh University. She is the editor of Con Men and Cutpurses: Scenes from the Hogarthian Underworld, and author of the critically acclaimed The Thieves Opera: The Remarkable Lives and Deaths of Jonathan Wild, Thief-Taker, and Jack Sheppard, House-Breaker (Viking 1996) as well as Amphibious Thing: the Life of a Georgian Rake (Viking 2000) and Maharanis: The Lives and Times of Three Generations of Indian Princesses (Viking 2004). Maharanis has been reprinted six times, was an Evening Standard bestseller, and the top selling non-fiction title in WH Smith on paperback publication in summer 2005.

Lucy is a regular book reviewer for the Observer and the Sunday Times. In April 2001, she was voted one of the 'Top Twenty Young Writers in Britain' by the Independent on Sunday and in the 'Writers' section of the New Statesman's 'Best of Young British' issue.

Television presenter work includes Nelson for Great Britons (BBC) and Kings in Waiting: Edward VII (BBC) plus a number of talking head appearances.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

This sampling of 17th and 18th century crime writing is sort of odd to find among the Penguin Classics, even if it does contain a poem by Jonathan Swift at his most lacerating (the subject is a prostitute). The other writer who is elsewhere represented in the Penguin canon is Henry Fielding, who served as an uncommonly modern Justice of the Peace, dubious of the death penalty (at that time applied for property crimes), arguing that social circumstances and law increased crime, and becoming one of the early theoreticians of police work. But the real heroes of this book are the criminals, especially the articulate ones. Pride of place of course goes to the highwaymen and pirates, Dick Turpin, Captain Kidd, and Blackbeard, who was known to shoot at his own crew, once commenting that "if he did not now and then kill one of them, they would forget who he was." There was Jonathan Wild, the thief-taker, a king of the fences who occasionally found it useful to turn in the men who sold to whom. A number of them became characters in "The Threepenny Opera"--Jenny Diver made it into some of the English versions of "Mack the Knife." Class was often at play--well-heeled murderers went free while thieves were hanged or sent to the stocks, where they custom of people coming up and beating a prisoner often left him or her with eventually fatal injuries. What we now call sex offenders are represented, which at the time included homosexuality of any kind. Then there are the simply weird--the gangs the unearthed fresh corpses to sell to doctors for dissection, and the man who followed women around, slicing their skin through their clothes, including a group of sisters with whom he seems to have been obsessed. But nothing is really stranger than the woman who managed to convince a number of people that she was giving birth to rabbits; it took a man of considerable intelligence to question such a incredible event, unattended by midwives and from which the mother recovered with remarkable speed.

[Hannah CF · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall a very interesting anthology of crime from the 1600s - late 1700s, and the harsh punishments involved. The vast majority of the crime was caused by crushing abject poverty - no surprises there.

I misplaced my copy for a couple years which is why it took so long to finish!

[Bettina Partridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting anthology. Cases chosen because they demonstrate stand outs rather than regular occurrences. Good to be able to read the primary sources. Some interesting and well known characters in there.

[Marti · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a compendium of unusual cases from 18th and early 19th Century London, taken from court records and other eyewitness accounts of burglars, highway robbers, "Confidence Tricksters" and sex offenders. Many of the underworld figures chronicled here were later romanticized in fiction (Jack Sheppard, who was the inspiration for, among others, Dickens' Artful Dodger and Jonathan Wild, possibly the first organized crime boss in London). Because the writings are contemporary, they feel more vivid than the standard history text.

[Kit Kincade · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the fact that it is an anthology is useful & it has some interesting excerpts collected within, frequently the head notes are so descriptive that it gives away the entire story before you read the entry.

[Martine Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laudable in itself but basically a compendium of cases without any analysis. For myself I prefer to look at the Newgate Calendar and trials direct.

[F.K. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good collection of case studies for anyone researching or looking for insight into court cases and the justice system in the 1700's.