In the popular imagination informed as it is by Hogarth Swift Defoe & Fielding the eighteenth-century underworld is a place of bawdy knockabout rife with colourful eccentrics. But the artistic portrayals we have only hint at the dark reality. In this new edition of a classic collection of essays renowned social historians from Britain & America examine the gangs of criminals who tore apart English society while a criminal law of unexampled savagery struggled to maintain stability. Douglas Hay deals with the legal system that maintained the propertied classes & in another essay shows it in brutal action against poachers; John G. Rule & Cal Winslow tell of smugglers & wreckers showing how these activities formed a natural part of the life of traditional communities. Together with Peter Linebaugh s piece on the riots against the surgeons at Tyburn & E. P. Thompson s illuminating work on anonymous threatening letters these essays form a powerful contribution to the study of social tensions at a transformative & vibrant stage in English history. This new edition
Includes:: a new introduction by Winslow Hay & Linebaugh reflecting on the turning point in the social history of crime that the book represents