TY  - BOOK
AU  - Skirboll,Aaron
TI  - The thief-taker hangings: how Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard captivated London and created the celebrity criminal 
SN  - 9781493050000
PY  - 2020///]
CY  - Guilford, Connecticut
PB  - Lyons Press, an imprint of Globe Pequot Press
KW  - Defoe, Daniel,
KW  - Wild, Jonathan,
KW  - Sheppard, Jack,
KW  - Crime and the press
KW  - Great Britain
KW  - 18th century
KW  - Sensationalism in journalism
KW  - History
KW  - Criminals
KW  - England
KW  - London
KW  - Tabloid newspapers
KW  - London (England)
KW  - Social conditions
KW  - True crime stories
KW  - lcgft
N1  - Includes bibliographical references and index; Introduction: A brawling back-alley bunch -- Prologue: The triple tree -- The dissenter -- The streets of London -- Jonathan Wild comes to the city -- The Review -- The marshal and the buckle-maker -- Thief-catcher general of Great Britain and Ireland -- Jack Sheppard, apprentice -- The regulator -- Crusoe and Flanders -- The black lion -- Celebrity gangbuster -- Cleverest of all -- Wild versus Sheppard -- The trial of Jack Sheppard -- Mr. Applebee's man -- Blueskin's penknife -- The castle -- Forlorn at the triple tree -- The downfall of Jonathan Wild -- The trial of Jonathan Wild -- Hanging the thief-catcher -- "To deliver myself from this death of a life" -- Epilogue: Legends -- Appendix: Canting dictionary
N2  - Chronicles the invention of scandal journalism by Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Wild, and Jack Sheppard; In the early 1700s, lawlessness ruled England. Highwaymen, thieves, and prostitutes thrived. Tawdry tales of fearless criminals proliferated, giving birth to a new medium: the newspaper. When notorious burglar Jack Sheppard finally met the hangman, street singers warbled ballads about the housebreaker whom no prison could hold. But before his execution, he told his life story to a writer who also had seen the inside of Newgate Prison. Daniel Defoe had done hard time for sedition and bankruptcy and saw how jail corrupted the poor. Most came out thieves, but he came out a journalist. Six months later, the author of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders covered another death at the hanging tree. Jonathan Wild--his body covered in scars from dagger, sword, and gun, his fractured skull patched with silver plates--had all but invented organized crime and the double-cross. He cultivated thieves, took a cut of their loot, and eventually betrayed them for his reward and their deaths. But one man refused to play his game. Jack Sheppard hadn't taken orders from Wild, the self-proclaimed "thief-taker general," and the two-faced bounty hunter took it personally. But Wild's arrogance got the better of him, and his duplicity soon came to light. He quickly became the most despised man in London. On his way to swing, a raging mob hurled rocks at him, and whatever else they could find. Defoe once again got the scoop, and tabloid journalism as we know it began.--From publisher description
ER  -