Thief-Taker General: Jonathan Wild and the Emergence of Crime and Corruption as a Way of Life in Eighteenth-Century England

• NCJ Number: 120450
• Author(s): G Howson
• Date Published: 1970
• Length: 338 pages
• Sale Source: Transaction Publishers
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This book chronicles the history of Jonathan Wild who was hailed as the most efficient thief hunter and gang breaker in eighteenth century England.

Abstract

In the 1720's, London suffered the worst crime wave in its history, and civic corruption occurred on a massive scale. The government's response was to pay a bounty for the capture of robbers, thus creating a class of professional informers. Jonathan Wild's own posse of thief catchers was basically a front behind which he was able to control the underground world through a complex system of blackmail, perjury, and terror. Although the book at one level is a biography of Jonathan Wild as the world's first supercriminal, the author also provides insights into the structure of criminal gangs. 86 references, 18 illustrations.