- 272 pages
- English
- ePUB (mobile friendly)
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub
About this book
Why does the notorious highwayman Dick Turpin have such an extraordinary reputation today? How come his criminal career has inspired a profusion of often misleading literature and film? This eighteenth-century villain is often portrayed as a hero – dashing, sinister, romantic, daring, a Robin Hood of his times. The reality, as Jonathan Oates reveals in this perceptive, carefully researched study, was radically different. He was a robber, torturer and killer, a gangster whose posthumous reputation has eclipsed the truth about his life. In the early 1700s Turpin progressed from butcher's apprentice and poacher to become a member of the Gregory gang which terrorized householders around London by robbery and violence. Then came his two-year career as a highwayman robbing travelers, his partnership with Matthew King whom he may have killed in Whitechapel, his murder Thomas Morris in Epping Forest, and his eventual capture and execution. Jonathan Oates recounts the episodes in Turpin's short, brutal life in dramatic detail, basing his narrative on contemporary sources – trial records and newspapers in particular – and he traces the development of the Turpin legend over 250 years through novels, ballads, plays, television and film. The Dick Turpin who emerges from this rigorous and scholarly biography is in many ways a more interesting man than the legend suggests.
Information
Subtopic
Historical BiographiesTable of contents
- Cover
- Dedication
- Title
- Copyright
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Society, Crime and Justice in Early Eighteenth-century England
- Chapter 2 The Young Turpin, 1705–34
- Chapter 3 Turpin and the Gregory Gang, 1734–35
- Chapter 4 Turpin the Highwayman, 1735–37
- Chapter 5 Turpin’s Capture and Trial, 1737–39
- Chapter 6 Evolution of the Turpin Myth
- Chapter 7 Turpin in Film and TV
- Chapter 8 Turpin and the Historians
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Plates Section
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Yes, you can access Dick Turpin by Jonathan Oates in PDF and/or ePUB format. We have over 1.5 million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.