TYBURN. London's Fatal Tree.

Hardback. Reprint. Tyburn, close to present-day Marble Arch in London, is synonymous with public hanging - over 50,000 died there between the 12th century and 1783. A survey of those who died at Tyburn and the crimes for which they were executed provides fascinating insights into economic and social change in London and throughout Britain in this period. Those executed at Tyburn include Perkin Warbeck, imposter and pretender to the English throne; Elizabeth Barton, the 'Maid of Kent' who denounced Henry VIII's marriage to Anne Boleyn; Claude Duval, the handsome, dashing highwayman; Jack Sheppard, darling of the London crowd because of his audacious escapes from custody, and the hated Jonathan Wild, London's first 'master criminal'. Most of the people who died had been hauled through the streets from Newgate Prison and the road from there to Tyburn united the 2 locations in a grisly symbiosis, Vast crowds turned out to revel in the free entertainment. They cheered the felons they regarded as heroes and flung missiles and verbal insults at those whose crimes they deplored. The authors have provided a vivid picture of crime and punishment, of social history and London's murky past, in this book which draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Illus., Appendix, Bibliog. and Index. 246pp. 8vo. h/back. Lightly browned pp. o/w Nr. F. in Nr. F. dw.