The Thieves' Opera: The Mesmerizing Story of Two Notorious Criminals in Eighteenth-Century London [Hardcover]

Lucy Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 13, 1998

The criminal underworld of Georgian London, the notorious “Thief-Taker” Jonathan Wild, and infamous housebreaker Jack Sheppard are the subjects in this deftly told history.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Set against a backdrop of crumbling buildings--the result of hasty, cheap efforts at "urban renewal" after the Great Fire of 1666--and beautifully illustrated with William Hogarth's moralistic woodcuts, The Thieves' Opera charts the meteoric rise and fall of two of early-18th-century London's more colorful characters. The ruthless "lawman" Jonathan Wild was an early mastermind of organized crime who operated more or less within the boundaries of official approval; the slippery, mischievous Jack Sheppard had a knack for prison escapes and defiance of pompous authority that made him a sort of burglar-hero among the commoners of London.

Lucy Moore shows how Wild became London's unofficial "Thief-Taker General." Working under the auspices of London's lackadaisical officialdom, he made his career returning stolen goods to their proper owners for a fee; unknown to the victims, he negotiated directly with the robbers and often oversaw the original thefts. He discouraged competition, with punishments and reprisal that evoke contemporary Mob hits. On the other side of the coin is Sheppard, who lacked the ambition of Wild, but performed his crimes with a flair that in many cases robbed his victims of even the desire to hold a grudge against him.

Moore excels at supplying crucial illuminations of early-18th-century London street life with descriptions of coffee houses and public plazas so vivid you feel you've visited them. She emancipates the era from the quaint, manneristic drawing-room notions of ritualized emotions and unrequited love portrayed by modern-day "historical" fiction and film. Moore's London is filthy, chaotic, and hellish, a black den thick with thieves and "protected" by agents of law barely more scrupulous. With its large cast of cutpurses, highwaymen, footpads, prostitutes, and jailers (and jailed), The Thieves' Opera evokes more the Wild West of 19th-century America than it does refined British society. --Tjames Madison

From Publishers Weekly

For sheer decadence, no city, ancient or modern, rivaled 18th-century London. In its jumbled streets roamed predatory prostitutes, cunning thieves and street gangs who, for a lark, would chop off the noses of passersby. Moore debuts impressively with a vivid portrait of that city's most infamous villains: "the famous house-breaker and gaol-breaker" Jack Sheppard, and his arch-nemesis, Jonathan Wild, a self-appointed "quasi-servant of the law." Sheppard achieved pop-idol status both for the "sense of humor" he displayed in perpetrating his thefts and for his Houdini-like ability to escape whatever shackles the government slipped over his tiny wrists. Wild, meanwhile, was a moody, complex man, whose unofficial status as "thief-taker general" ingratiated him with the public as an uncannily successful retriever of stolen property. "A past master of self-promotion," Wild hyped himself in the press, distracting the public and the government from his other role?as boss of London's underworld. Criminals who tried to elude his control ended up on the gallows; when Sheppard chafed at his authority, his fate, and ultimately Wild's, was sealed. Moore writes crisply and concretely in a highly accessible manner, but her many digressions prevent Wild and Sheppard from fully capturing readers' imaginations. In recounting Wild's public hanging in his nightshirt, for example, she expounds at length on the traditional costumes of the condemned. Even so, this is a strong bet for fans of Caleb Carr's fiction and of historical crime stories in general. Illustrated throughout with b&w period engravings by William Hogarth.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; 1St Edition edition (August 13, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0151003645
• ISBN-13: 978-0151003648
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.3 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,461,305 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crime and Punishment, January 20, 2001

By 

Ricky Hunter (New York City, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Thieves' Opera: The Mesmerizing Story of Two Notorious Criminals in Eighteenth-Century London (Hardcover)

Lucy Moore, in The Thieves' Opera, has explored an interesting topic that takes the reader through the world of London from the slums to, on occasion, the mansions. Using the characters of Jonathan Wild and the folk hero/criminal Jack Sheppard, the author expands the narrative to show the entire world of crime and punishment that existed at this time. Very little seemed, at times, to separate those committing the crimes from those prosecuting the criminals and it is easy to see why Jack Sheppard, with his numerous escapes, could become such a hero in such a corrupt system. The story is told in a way that leads the reader from the beginnings of a system that would lead to crime to the execution of the criminal. The two lead criminals sometimes fall by the wayside in their own story but interest is maintained nonetheless by looking at the larger canvas. An interesting read.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good, not great., March 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Thieves' Opera: The Mesmerizing Story of Two Notorious Criminals in Eighteenth-Century London (Hardcover)

The first 2/3 of the book are very strong - Moore does an excellent job bringing early 18th century London to life, and in particular Wild and Sheppard. She does an excellent job portraying the cultural impact of the two - the way Defoe, Hogarth, and John Gay (author of "The Thieves' Opera", best known now through Brecht's "Threpenny Opera") interacted with their world. Her descriptions of Wild and Sheppard's criminal exploits is fascinating (among other things, it's from Wild that we get the term "double-cross").

However, Moore seems to run out of steam about 2/3 of the way through. The last part, dealing with Wild's fall, could have been just as interesting as his rise, but Moore seems rather bored with it - it's dashed off quickly. Conversely, she spends far too much time describing the exact details of the English law-enforcement mechanisms of the time, read like it was stapled in from a research paper.

Ah well, can't have everything - overall a very good read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Terrific details of crime in early 1700s London!, July 19, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Thieves' Opera: The Mesmerizing Story of Two Notorious Criminals in Eighteenth-Century London (Hardcover)

If you enjoyed the recent TV version of Moll Flanders, or if you're a history or true crime buff, this is your book. The author engagingly surveys the amazingly violent and turbulent city that London was in the early 1700s. Vast differences between rich and poor encouraged theft of all kinds and created an underworld that mirrored high society. The writing can be a bit dry at times, but the period details are so compelling it doesn't matter. One example: a man's wig might cost 40 pounds, which was much more than an average worker could earn in a year, in a good year.

Lev Raphael, "Mysteries" columnist, Detroit Free Press