The Thieves' Opera: The Mesmerizing Story of Two Notorious Criminals in Eighteenth-Century London - Hardcover

Moore, Lucy

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0151003645 ISBN 13: 9780151003648

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1998

Synopsis

Portrays the rivalry between two of Georgian London's most popular thieves, Jonathan Wild, who dominated London's underworld, and Jack Sheppard, who refused to work for Wild, was imprisoned repeatedly, and became a celebrated folk hero. 25,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author

Lucy Moore (born 1970) is a historian and writer. Lucy Moore was born in 1970. She was educated in Britain and the United States and studied history at Edinburgh University. In the 1990s, her parents lived in Mumbai, India. She spent some time visiting them in India, which led to her book Maharanis about Indian princesses

Reviews

For sheer decadence, no city, ancient or modern, rivaled 18th-century London. In its jumbled streets roamed predatory prostitutes, cunning thieves and street gangs who, for a lark, would chop off the noses of passersby. Moore debuts impressively with a vivid portrait of that city's most infamous villains: "the famous house-breaker and gaol-breaker" Jack Sheppard, and his arch-nemesis, Jonathan Wild, a self-appointed "quasi-servant of the law." Sheppard achieved pop-idol status both for the "sense of humor" he displayed in perpetrating his thefts and for his Houdini-like ability to escape whatever shackles the government slipped over his tiny wrists. Wild, meanwhile, was a moody, complex man, whose unofficial status as "thief-taker general" ingratiated him with the public as an uncannily successful retriever of stolen property. "A past master of self-promotion," Wild hyped himself in the press, distracting the public and the government from his other role?as boss of London's underworld. Criminals who tried to elude his control ended up on the gallows; when Sheppard chafed at his authority, his fate, and ultimately Wild's, was sealed. Moore writes crisply and concretely in a highly accessible manner, but her many digressions prevent Wild and Sheppard from fully capturing readers' imaginations. In recounting Wild's public hanging in his nightshirt, for example, she expounds at length on the traditional costumes of the condemned. Even so, this is a strong bet for fans of Caleb Carr's fiction and of historical crime stories in general. Illustrated throughout with b&w period engravings by William Hogarth.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This nifty popular history spotlights the interrelated careers of the Georgian era's two most notorious good-for-nothings: Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard. We've all heard about the London of Swift and Defoe in all its fashionable tawdriness: the endemic gin drinking, the crime, and the depravity. But many readers will be surprised to learn that, lacking an organized police force, wronged citizens of this time were themselves responsible for bringing criminals to trial. Master of this thieves' universe was Wild, a ``past-master in the art of self-promotion,'' arrogant, egotistical, the subject of a biography written by Defoe. Moore retells the saga of Wild's apprenticeship in crime and how he came to make his living as an intermediary between the criminal underworld and its victims, taking a fee for returning stolen goods and, on occasion, for turning in to the authorities--again, at a nice profit--those crooks who had earned his ill-will. Says Moore of Wild and his pas de deux with such individuals as Sheppard, a housebreaker: ``Wild knew as much about their actions as they did, and they learned not to disobey or deceive him.'' The rebellious Sheppard's ascendant career would be closely tied with Wild's eventual downfall, and Moore's story really takes off in its second half with the telling of Sheppard's several audacious prison breaks. Illustrations from Hogarth's contemporaneous engravings give a fitting illustration to Moore's detailed narrative. She also provides a breezy overview of law and penal codes in a society that made up for its lack of policing by decreeing but one penalty, death by hanging, for a range of crimes from petty robbery to murder. Moores debut employs these endearing rogues' biographies as occasion for an extended overview of London's wild and woolly street culture. The result is edifying, richly colorful, and, at times, enthralling. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Early-18th-century London was not the place to be for those who might have liked to avoid high-crime areas. One Frenchman observed that "the excessive clemency of English laws gave room for abundance of ill actions that would not else be committed.... There is much less danger at being wicked at London than at Paris." In this milieu, English historian Moore's debut book follows the convergent paths of Jonathan Wild, a thief-taker (a sort of bounty hunter who played both sides of the law, charging crime victims for recovering goods that thieves working for him had stolen), and Jack Sheppard, a thief who refused to be a part of Wild's stable and, once imprisoned, made more than one daring jailbreak. Although their feud is at the center of Moore's work, the reader never really comes to know these historical protagonists that well. Nevertheless, this remains an engaging and original social history. Recommended for larger true-crime or popular history collections.?Jim G. Burns, Ottumwa,
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Moore exposes the seamy underbelly of Georgian society by reviewing the lives of two infamous thieves and con artists. The author places Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard firmly in historical context by commencing with an introduction to the geographical, economic, and social realities of eighteenth-century London. The lack of an effective police force, the enormous gulf that existed between social classes, and the often cruel and impersonal nature of a large city in an essentially rural society all contributed to the proliferation of organized criminal activity in London during the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Jonathan Wild, architect of one of the most notorious and successful theft rings, not only arranged for the hijacking of valuable items from the aristocracy, but also sold them back to his victims through his ingeniously organized fencing operation. At the other end of the criminal spectrum, Jack Sheppard, a rebellious petty thief with an individualistic nature, became something of a folk hero when he refused to work in or cooperate with Wild's illicit fraternity. Margaret Flanagan

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 1998
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0151003645
• ISBN 13: 9780151003648
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304