Stephen Basdeo is a historian and writer based in Leeds, UK.
Dick Turpin (1705-1739) is perhaps the most famous highwayman in English history after Robin Hood. He is remembered today as a heavily romanticised noble, gallant figure, having allegedly rode his horse from London to York in one day upon his trusty horse, Black Bess, the real Dick Turpin, as you would expect, was a wholly different man. This post gives a brief overview of his life and the legend which grew around him.
in 1800 the story of Robin Hood’s birth appeared.
Did any women ever rob people in the 17th and 18th centuries?
Recidivism…refers to a person’s relapse into criminal behavior, often after the person receives sanctions or undergoes intervention for a previous crime.
Did people *need* the myth of a good outlaw?
‘The morning dawned…the clock had just struck eight, when the voice of a man in the street fell upon his ear. He heard the following announcement:-
Here is a full account of the horrible assassination committed by the miscreant William Bolter upon the person of his wife…only one penny! The fullest and most perfect account – only one penny!’
In the 16th century there was an understanding among some thinkers that Christ may have died on a simple wooden stake or tree, rather than a two beam cross, and similarly the Geste of Robyn Hode makes reference to “Cryst that dyed on a tree”.
The Victorians hated the ever-increasing price of rail travel just as much as we do today. In this ballad from “Punch”, Robin Hood is a ‘robbing’ Rail company boss.
The Man who served the Booby but loved the Fanny.
Do we read ‘books,’ or do we read texts? What is a book?
This is a copy of the paper that I presented at the International Association for Robin Hood Studies ‘Outlaws in Context’ Conference, 30 June – 1 July 2015.
This is a copy of the paper I gave at the British Association for Romantic Studies International Conference, 19 – 19 July 2015.
In Henry Fielding’s novel, there was no difference between the great men in high life and those in low life.
According to the legend, in old age Robin Hood fell ill and went to visit his cousin, who was the Prioress of Kirklees, so that he could be bled. However, his cousin conspired with her lover, Sir Roger of Doncaster, to kill Robin. So she opened a vein, locked Robin in the upper room of the gatehouse, and let him bleed to death.
This is an excellent blog post. A Commentary on a song from one of my favourite operas.
I feel bad writing about something like this, like I’m betraying my eighteenth-century roots.
“A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode” (c.1450) is one of the earliest Robin Hood texts, and one of the most interesting.
In 1637 Ben Jonson began work on a Robin Hood play, “The Sad Shepherd; or, a Tale of Robin Hood,” and presented an idealised, pastoral outlaw world.
Robin Hood first became an Earl in the 16th century; two relatively unknown plays had a dramatic effect upon later interpretations of the legend.
Pierce Egan the Younger (1814-1880) was like the George R. R. Martin of his day. He loved the medieval period,
The 19th-century criminal was an altogether different species of villain compared to the romantic highwayman a century previously.
Exorbitancy and Necessity frequently compelled him to perpetrate Villainy; And no wonder, since he lived in the most infectious Air of the worst of most Licentious Times.
Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” marked the emergence of a new genre: the urban gothic.
The novel emerged as the dominant literary form in the 1700s, but one of its influences was the contemporary genre of criminal biography.