“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)
In 1863 a reporter decided to experience what it was like to spend Christmas Day amongst the felons in Newgate.
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 […]
Did any women ever rob people in the 17th and 18th centuries?
Do we read ‘books,’ or do we read texts? What is a book?
This is a copy of the paper that I presented at the International Association for Robin Hood Studies ‘Outlaws in Context’ Conference, 30 June – 1 July 2015.
In 1637 Ben Jonson began work on a Robin Hood play, “The Sad Shepherd; or, a Tale of Robin Hood,” and presented an idealised, pastoral outlaw world.
Robin Hood first became an Earl in the 16th century; two relatively unknown plays had a dramatic effect upon later interpretations of the legend.
Exorbitancy and Necessity frequently compelled him to perpetrate Villainy; And no wonder, since he lived in the most infectious Air of the worst of most Licentious Times.
In 1977, the horror movie The Hills Have Eyes was released, but it was based upon a 17th-century Scottish folk tale and was then immortalised in 18th-century criminal biography
