How Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard Captivated London and Created the Celebrity Criminal
by Aaron Skirboll
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2014
320 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
In the early 1700s, lawlessness ruled England, and highwaymen, thieves, and prostitutes thrived. When notorious burglar Jack Sheppard finally met the hangman, street singers warbled ballads about the housebreaker whom no prison could hold. Before his execution, he told his story to a writer in the crowd. Daniel Defoe had done hard time himself for sedition and bankruptcy and saw how prison corrupted the poor. They came out thieves, but he came out a journalist. Six months later, Defoe covered another death at the hanging tree.
Jonathan Wild had all but invented the double-cross. He cultivated thieves and then betrayed them for his reward and their executions. Jack Sheppard hadn't taken orders from this self-proclaimed "thief-taker general," and the two-faced bounty hunter took it personally, helping to bring the burglar's life to an end. But Wild's duplicity soon came to light, and he became the most despised man in the land. When he swung, a mob hurled rocks, rotten food, and even dead animals at him. Defoe once again got the scoop, and tabloid journalism had begun.
"Starred Review. A rollicking romp through London's underbelly, Skirboll's rich, multilayered account reveals the birth of society's fascination with criminals." - Publishers Weekly
"The daring cleverness of both Wild and Sheppard makes for fun historical reading." - Kirkus
"Aaron Skirboll's fascinating book will whisk you vividly back into history, capturing the zeal and aesthetic of the period...The book is all at once compelling, engaging, skillfully crafted, but also energized by a layered subject that could have been ripped from today's sensational headlines." - M. William Phelps, New York Times bestselling author of Murder, New England and The Devil's Rooming House and star of the Investigation Discovery series Dark Minds
"The Thief-Taker Hangings is history that reads like exciting fiction... Skirboll captures all of this with a human touch that gives his account an added compassion worthy of John Gay and Bertold Brecht." - Peter Rand, author of Conspiracy of One
Aaron Skirboll skillfully weaves together the lives and times of Daniel Defoe, who invented the English novel and literary true crime journalism, and two infamous criminals whose stories he told... The Thief-Taker Hangings brings early eighteenth-century London vividly to life." - Peter Kobel, author of The Strange Case of the Mad Professor
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Aaron Skirboll is the author of The Pittsburgh Cocaine Seven and has written about America's first professional songwriter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ernest Hemingway's last days for American Way magazine, and the history of the phone booth and cell phone etiquette for The Morning News. He lives in Pennsylvania.
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