Underworld London

Beginning with an atmospheric account of Tyburn, we are set up for a grisly excursion through London as a city of ne'er do wells, taking in beheadings and brutality at the Tower, Elizabethan street crime, cutpurses and con-men, through to the Gordon Riots and Highway robbery of the 18thcentury and the rise of prisons, the police and the Victorian era of incarceration. As well as the crimes, Arnold also looks at the grotesque punishments meted out to those who transgressed the law throughout London's history - from the hangings, drawings and quarterings at Tyburn over 500 years to being boiled in oil at Smithfield. This popular historian also investigates the influence of London's criminal classes on the literature of the 19thand 20thcenturies, and ends up with our old favourites, the Krays and Soho gangs of the 50s and 60s. London's crimes have changed over the centuries, both in method and execution. Underworld London traces these developments, from the highway robberies of the eighteenth century, made possible by the constant traffic of wealthy merchants in and out of the city, to the beatings, slashings and poisonings of the Victorian era.

A quirky, fascinating portrait of the English capital's dark and criminal underbelly throughout history Beginning with an atmospheric account of Tyburn, this grisly excursion through London as a city of ne'er do wells takes in beheadings and brutality at the Tower, Elizabethan street crime, cutpurses and con-men, 18th century highway robbery, and the rise of prisons, the police, and the Victorian era of incarceration. It also examines the influence of London's criminal classes on the literature of the 19th and 20th century, through to the Krays and Soho gangs of the 1950s and 1960s. London's crimes have changed over the centuries, both in method and execution. This lively popular history traces these developments, from the highway robberies of the 18th century, made possible by the constant traffic of wealthy merchants in and out of the city, to the beatings, slashings, and poisonings of the Victorian era.

London’s Underworld takes us on the nightmarish last journeys of condemned criminals to the gallows at Tyburn. We enter death-trap eighteenth century prisons, one of which the novelist Henry Fielding described as a ‘prototype of hell’. We walk the crowded streets of Victorian London with its swarms of prostitutes and follow the ingenious villains who carried out the first great train robbery in 1854. We see the rise and fall of the interwar racecourse gangs and the bloody battle for control of the Wes End. This fascinating book illustrates how crime in the capital has evolved from the extreme violence of the early eighteenth century to the vastly more complex and lucrative, but no less brutal, gangland of today.

Reproduction of the original.

This book offers an original and exciting analysis of the concept of the criminal underworld. Print culture, policing and law enforcement, criminal networks, space and territory are explored here through a series of case studies taken from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Harry Black is lost between the world of war and the land of myth in this illustrated novel that transports the tale of Orpheus to World War II–era London. Brothers Marcus and Julian Sedgwick team up to pen this haunting tale of another pair of brothers, caught between life and death in World War II. Harry Black, a conscientious objector, artist, and firefighter battling the blazes of German bombing in London in 1944, wakes in the hospital to news that his soldier brother, Ellis, has been killed. In the delirium of his wounded state, Harry’s mind begins to blur the distinctions between the reality of war-torn London, the fiction of his unpublished sci-fi novel, and the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. Driven by visions of Ellis still alive and a sense of poetic inevitability, Harry sets off on a search for his brother that will lead him deep into the city’s Underworld. With otherworldly paintings by Alexis Deacon depicting Harry’s surreal descent further into the depths of hell, this eerily beautiful blend of prose, verse, and illustration delves into love, loyalty, and the unbreakable bonds of brotherhood as it builds to a fierce indictment of mechanized warfare.

This companion addresses the history of crime and punishment through entries by expert contributors that select and define the central vocabulary and terminology for the study of the history of crime and punishment. Organized alphabetically, with useful cross-references and bibliographies, it goes beyond mere definitions to offer rigorous critical analysis of the terms and their use within the field, both now and in the past. It will be essential to students, researchers, and teachers in the field.