Drunks, Whores And Idle Apprentices

Criminal biographies enjoyed enormous popularity in the eighteenth century: today they offer us some fascinating perspectives on the period. Drunks, Whores and Idle Apprentices is the first book of its kind to reproduce a number of these biographies in one volume. Included are the biographies of street robbers, pickpockets, burglers, horse thieves and confidence tricksters. Each biography is prefaced with background historical information, and thoroughly footnoted. Not only do these biographies make fascinating reading, they also raise the problem of how to read them as historical documents.