Full Description
In London Labour and the London Poor (1861) Henry Mayhew wrote, "Of all books, perhaps none has ever had so baneful effect upon the young mind, taste, and principles" as Jack Sheppard. An historical novel based on the exploits of John Sheppard, a thief who was executed in 1724, Jack Sheppard was blamed for inciting working-class crime and vagrancy for decades after its 1839 publication. The fast-paced narrative of Sheppard's repeated prison escapes and his struggles against the evil thief-catcher Jonathan Wild was immensely popular, as well as controversial, in its own time, and is now available for the first time in a fully annotated edition.
This Broadview edition includes the original George Cruikshank illustrations, as well as a rich selection of contemporary reviews of the novel and material on the historical Jack Sheppard, Victorian urban street culture, and the novel's popular theatrical adaptations.
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Introduction
William Harrison Ainsworth: A Brief Chronology
A Note on the Text
Jack Sheppard
Appendix A: Eighteenth-Century Journalism on the Historical Jack Sheppard
Coverage of Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild in the British Journal and Daily Journal (September 1724 to May 1725)
From [Daniel Defoe?], The History of the Remarkable Life of John Sheppard (1724)
Appendix B: Contemporary Reviews
From [William Jerdan], The Literary Gazette (19 October 1839)
From The Athenaeum (26 October 1839)
From [John Forster], The Examiner (3 November 1839)
From [J. Hamilton Reynolds], "William Ainsworth and Jack Sheppard," Fraser's Magazine (February 1840)
Appendix C: Jack Sheppard and Urban Street Culture
From Henry Mayhew, "London Vagrants," London Labour and the London Poor (1861)
From Henry Mayhew, "Lives of the Boy Inmates of the Casual Wards of the London Workhouses", London Labour and the London Poor (1861)
From Report from the Select Committee on Criminal and Destitute Juveniles (1852)
Appendix D: Theatrical Adaptations
Review of J.B. Buckstone, Jack Sheppard, A Drama in Four Acts (Sunday Times, 3 November 1839)
From J.B. Buckstone, Jack Sheppard, A Drama in Four Acts (1839)
From Jack Sheppard, A Drama in Three Acts (185-?)
Works Cited and Further Readings
Select Bibliography
