“The Noble Birth and Gallant Atchievements of that Remarkable Out-Law Robin Hood. Together with a True Account of the Many Merry and Extravagant Exploits he Play’s in Twelve Several Stories” (1662)
“The Noble Birth of Robin Hood” (1662)
Review: Stephen Knight’s “Reading Robin Hood” (2015)
Knight is the man who back in 1994 essentially rescued Robin Hood Studies from the seemingly never-ending quest to find a ‘real’ Robin Hood by shifting the discipline’s emphasis towards literary research.
Christmas in Newgate Gaol
In 1863 a reporter decided to experience what it was like to spend Christmas Day amongst the felons in Newgate.
John Dryden’s “A Ballad of Bold Robin Hood, Shewing his Birth, Breeding, and Valour”
John Dryden (1631-1700) is a significant figure in the literary history of the 17th century. In the Sixth Part of his Miscellany Poems he included an old ballad of Robin Hood. This post seeks to explain why he did this.
Captain James Hind (1616-1652): The Royalist Highwayman
William Harrison Ainsworth’s novel Rookwood (1834) is the work which, along with Edward Bulwer Lytton’s lesser novel Paul Clifford (1830) imbued eighteenth-century highwaymen to legendary status. Ainsworth wanted to write a novel […]
Jackson’s Recantation (1674)
or, The Life and Death of the Notorious High-Way-Man, Now Hanging in Chains at Hampstead, Delivered to a Friend a Little before Execution: Wherein is Truly Discovered the Whole Mystery of that Wicked and Fatal Profession of Padding on the Road (1674)
The Rogue Academic: William Dodd, L.L.D. (1729-1777)
Dr. William Dodd: A learned academic who turned to crime to pay his debts.
James MacLean (1724-1750): The Gentleman Highwayman
James Maclean (1724-1750) – the last ‘heroick’ highwayman.
Walter Scott’s Influence Upon 19th-Century Medieval Scholarship
Examining how Scott’s fictional interpretation of the Middle Ages, in particular the notion that Robin Hood was a Saxon yeoman, influenced historical scholarship in the early-to-mid nineteenth century.
Daniel Defoe’s “The History and Real Adventures of Robin Hood”
I recently came across an obscure little book entitled The History and Real Adventures of Robin Hood and his Merry Companions. Written by Captain Charles Johnson. To Which are added, some of the most favourite ballads from an old book, entitled Robin Hood’s Garland (1800). The archival entry lists the author as Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731),
Recidivism in “A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode” (c.1450)?
Recidivism…refers to a person’s relapse into criminal behavior, often after the person receives sanctions or undergoes intervention for a previous crime.
Last Dying Speeches
‘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!’
Henry Fielding’s “Joseph Andrews” (1742)
The Man who served the Booby but loved the Fanny.
What is a book? | Stephen Basdeo
Do we read ‘books,’ or do we read texts? What is a book?
Robin Hood: Illustrating an Outlaw
This is a copy of the paper I gave at the British Association for Romantic Studies International Conference, 19 – 19 July 2015.
A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode (c.1450)
“A Lytell Geste of Robyn Hode” (c.1450) is one of the earliest Robin Hood texts, and one of the most interesting.
Criminality in Dickens’ Oliver Twist (1838)
The 19th-century criminal was an altogether different species of villain compared to the romantic highwayman a century previously.
Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” (1843)
Eugene Sue’s “The Mysteries of Paris” marked the emergence of a new genre: the urban gothic.
The Novel and 18th-Century Criminal Biography
The novel emerged as the dominant literary form in the 1700s, but one of its influences was the contemporary genre of criminal biography.
Don’t Mess with an 18th-Century Poet…
Twitter spats between celebrities might be a common occurrence these days (ahem, Katie Hopkins), but public disputes between celebrities is nothing new.
“Bad” Prince John? Representations of the Prince in the Robin Hood Legend, c.1600-c.1800
Prince John is now one of the stock villains of movie and television adaptations of the Robin Hood legend, but this wasn’t always the case…
The Public School Ethos and Late Victorian Children’s Literature
The writers of biographical and fictional works in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries sought to instil these values into young people’s minds. These were the values of what is known as the public school ethos. This post shall examine the ways in which the values of the public school ethos were imparted to readers within such literature.
Eighteenth-Century Books
Every book which survives from the eighteenth century is a unique object, and likely there is not another one like it in the whole world.
Robin Hood Staffordshire Figurine
During the nineteenth century, various authors such as John Keats, Sir Walter Scott, and Thomas Love Peacock transformed Robin Hood into a morally safe figure; a respectable outlaw hero with whom the Victorian middle classes could identify. It was not purely in literary texts that Robin Hood’s respectable status was exhibited, however, but also in material culture.