19th Century… Robin Hood of the Anti-Corn Law League 12 May 2019 By Stephen Basdeo While physical archival research remains the “bread and butter” of the work of any historian, the rise of online repositories of primary sources have proved to be…
19th Century… The Politics of Victorian England’s “Vicious Republican”: G. W. M. Reynolds (1814–79) 13 Feb 2019 By Stephen Basdeo It’s quite possible that you’ve never heard of George William MacArthur Reynolds (1814–79). His prolific writing career has been overshadowed somewhat by his contemporaries such as Charles…
19th Century… Pierce Egan’s “Robin Hood Ballads” (1840) 6 Jan 2018 This post is not one of my usual essay style posts, with an introduction and conclusion, etc., but more of a research note after having got hold of a first…
19th Century… Society Gets the Criminals it Deserves: The Resurrection Man from G. W. M. Reynolds’ “The Mysteries of London” (1844-45) 30 Nov 201630 Nov 2016 [All images unless otherwise stated are my own, scanned from a first edition of Reynolds’ Mysteries that is in my own collection – permission to use is freely granted providing…
14th Century… Historic Yorkshire Criminals: William Knipe’s “Criminal Chronology” (1867) 3 Jul 20163 Jul 2016 The eighteenth century was the period in which criminal biography flourished, when men such as Charles Johnson were publishing books such as Lives of the Highwaymen (1734) alongside serialised publications…