Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals

Dark Stories
  • 0.0 (0)
  • True Crime

Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is a true crime podcast unlike any other; because every word of it was written nearly 300 years ago.  Each week, we read aloud one chapter from a remarkable book first published in London in 1735: a sprawling collection of murderers, highwaymen, coiners, housebreakers, pirates and worse, recorded in vivid and unsparing detail.  The crimes are real. The voices are authentic. And the world they reveal, brutal, strange, and surprisingly familiar, has been waiting three centuries to be heard again. True crime did not begin with podcasts. It began here by the burning light of a candle.

  1. 5d ago

    Episode 023: Richard Whittingham: The Young Footpad of London's Streets

    Send us your Feedback Richard Whittingham is barely past boyhood when he abandons his apprenticeship and steps into London's criminal underworld. As Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals recounts, his downfall begins not with malice but with weakness: an easy temper exploited by the wrong company and the relentless demands of women who trade affection for coin. His story is the kind of true crime narrative that reveals how quickly a young life can unravel in Georgian London. Whittingham is not born a villain; he is made one, piece by piece, by appetite and circumstance, until the streets themselves become his trade. The world he enters is one of coordinated violence and fragile loyalty, where the very companions who share the spoils are also the ones most likely to turn. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Footpad: today the word means nothing to most people, but in the eighteenth century it was instantly understood and deeply feared. A footpad was a robber who worked on foot, as opposed to the more glamorous highwayman on horseback. There was nothing romantic about a footpad; they were street-level predators who relied on speed, surprise and numbers. Hot-presser: this was a tradesman who used heated plates to press and finish cloth, giving fabric a smooth and lustrous surface. It was a respectable trade, the kind of steady apprenticeship that might have kept a young man out of trouble; Whittingham chose otherwise. Cutting off women's pockets: today a pocket is sewn into a garment, but in the early eighteenth century women wore separate pouches tied around the waist beneath their skirts. Thieves would literally slice the strings and snatch the pocket away. This is also the origin of the term 'pickpocket,' though the method here was closer to outright robbery. Impeached: we think of impeachment now as a political process, a formal accusation against a president or officeholder. In this era it meant something rawer and more personal: one criminal informing on another to save his own skin. To be impeached by a companion was to be betrayed from within. Passenger: in modern usage a passenger is someone riding in a vehicle, but in early eighteenth-century English it simply meant a person passing by on foot. The victims of Whittingham's gang were ordinary pedestrians walking London's broad streets. Condemned hold: this was the section of Newgate Prison where those sentenced to death were confined in their final days. It sat deep in the building, dark and airless, and the condemned could hear other prisoners beneath them through cracks in the floor; a last cruelty layered on top of all the others. Dissolution: today the word carries a formal, almost bureaucratic tone; the dissolution of a company or a parliament. In this context it means death itself: the dissolving of body from soul. It was the polite, prayerful way of naming the thing that waited at Tyburn. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

  2. Oct 12

    Episode 022: Thomas Reeves: The Notorious Highwayman and Footpad

    Send us your Feedback Thomas Reeves is raised with every advantage a tradesman's son could hope for: an indulgent father, a respectable apprenticeship, and a clear path forward. But as Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals tells it, the young tinman falls under the influence of men who mock religion and treat morality as nothing more than a convenient fiction. It is a corruption of the mind before it becomes a corruption of the hands. This true crime account captures the precise moment a young man trades honest work for the company of thieves; his boldness quickly making him leader of a gang that prowls the darker edges of Georgian London. What waits for a man who fears nothing; not law, not consequence, not even the state of his own soul; is a question the eighteenth century answers without mercy. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Footpad: Today we might say 'mugger' but in the eighteenth century the word footpad described a robber who worked on foot rather than horseback. Where the highwayman had a certain romantic swagger, the footpad was considered the lowest kind of street predator; no horse, no style, just violence in a dark lane. Bred: Nothing to do with baking. In this context, bred means raised or trained in a trade. To say a man was 'bred a tinman' is to say his entire upbringing was shaped toward that craft; a path laid out for him before he could walk. Priestcraft: A word dripping with contempt. It described what sceptics saw as the manipulation of ordinary people by clergy; religion not as truth but as a tool of control. The men who taught Reeves to think this way were not philosophers; they were thieves looking for an excuse. Preferred him: Today 'preferred' means to favour one thing over another. Here it means elevated or promoted. Reeves was preferred to be leader; meaning his boldness pushed him to the front of the gang, not that anyone politely chose him. Debauches: Bouts of wild, reckless indulgence; drinking, spending, living beyond any reasonable means. The word carries a heavier moral weight than 'partying' ever could; it implies a deliberate surrender to vice. Fact: In eighteenth century legal language, a fact was not merely something true; it was a criminal deed, the act itself. To be convicted 'for this fact' means convicted for this specific crime. The word has narrowed dramatically since then. Sensible: Today it means level-headed or practical. In this text it means aware or conscious of something. When Hartly appeared 'less sensible,' it does not mean he became foolish; it means he became numb, barely able to comprehend what was coming. Intermediate state: A theological concept Reeves batted around with unsettling calm. It refers to a possible condition of the soul between death and final judgement; neither heaven nor hell but something in between. That he discussed it as idle curiosity rather than desperate hope tells you everything about the man. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

  3. Oct 5

    Episode 021: John Thomson: Sailor Turned Highway Robber

    Send us your Feedback John Thomson grows up in London among dishonest company, learning the taste of easy money before he ever learns a trade. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals records how this weaver's apprentice abandons his loom for the sea, where years of plunder and bloodshed remake him into something harder than the boy who left the shore. When Thomson finally returns to land, the violence he has absorbed does not stay at sea. His story is the kind of true crime account that reveals how a man's character can curdle slowly, shaped by poverty, restlessness, and the grim education of wartime waters. The streets of Georgian London wait for men like Thomson; and the law waits too. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Listed himself: today we might say 'enlisted,' but in the early eighteenth century the word was simply 'listed.' It meant signing up for military or naval service, often on impulse, and it carried a weight of finality; once listed, you belonged to the Crown. Man-of-war: not a warrior but a warship. A man-of-war was a vessel built and armed for combat, crewed by pressed or volunteered sailors who lived in conditions brutal enough to make a London slum look comfortable. Thomson served aboard one and came home changed. Prizes: in naval usage, a prize was an enemy ship captured during wartime along with its cargo. Seizing prizes was legal plunder; crews received shares of the spoils, and a good cruise could make a common sailor rich. The word carried none of the innocent connotation it holds today; it smelled of gunpowder and salt water. Persons of no substance: this did not mean they lacked personality. Substance here means material wealth and social standing. Thomson's parents were poor, without property or reputation, and the phrase carried a quiet judgment: people of no substance were people who could not be trusted to raise a child properly. Creditable method of life: a way of living that earned you credit in the eyes of society; respectable, honest, worthy of trust. Thomson's shipmates managed it. Thomson did not. Debauched: the word still exists, but in the eighteenth century it carried heavier moral freight. To live a debauched life meant not merely to drink too much but to have been thoroughly corrupted; turned away from all discipline, all order, all decency. Thomson's chronicler uses it to describe a boy who had never so much as opened a Bible. Fact: today a fact is a piece of verified truth. In Georgian legal language, a fact was a deed; specifically, a criminal deed. When the text says Thomson was 'apprehended soon after this fact,' it means he was caught shortly after committing the crime itself. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

  4. Sep 28

    Episode 020: William Burridge: The Soldier Turned Highwayman

    Send us your Feedback William Burridge grows up strong, handsome, and restless in Northamptonshire, a young man built for the wrestling ring and the cudgel match but never for the carpenter's bench his father sets him to. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals captures him at the pivot point: a boy indulged too long, slipping easily from stolen poultry at country fairs to something far darker on the open road. His is the kind of story that feeds the oldest appetite in true crime: a man whose physical gifts and inflated sense of his own worth carry him past every warning and every second chance. The praise he wins only sharpens his hunger for a life unburdened by honest labour. Ahead of him lies a world of highways, prisons, and the slow tightening of a justice system that never forgets a name. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. The vulgar: today this word means crude or obscene, but in the eighteenth century it simply meant the common people; the ordinary masses. When the text says the vulgar have false notions of courage, it is not insulting anyone's manners; it is saying that everyday folk misunderstand what bravery really is, and that misunderstanding can ruin a man. Cudgel-playing: a rough sport in which two opponents battered each other with short, heavy sticks, trying to draw blood from the head. It was a fixture of country fairs and wakes, and winning earned a man the kind of local fame that could go straight to his skull; in more ways than one. Junketting: not a spelling error but an older form of junketing, meaning feasting, carousing, and generally having a wild time. Burridge's particular flavour of junketting involved servant girls in the neighbourhood, which tells you everything about where his priorities lay. Man-of-war: a warship; specifically a vessel in the Royal Navy armed and crewed for battle. Burridge's family hoped the discipline of naval service would straighten him out. The sea had other plans. Becoming evidence: this phrase meant turning informer; offering testimony against your fellow criminals in exchange for your own life. It was a desperate bargain, and the courts knew exactly how to exploit it. A man who became evidence bought time, but rarely bought trust. Wakes: in this context, not funeral vigils but annual parish festivals; loud, drunken, communal celebrations that often featured wrestling, cudgel bouts, and other rough entertainments. They were the proving grounds where young men like Burridge built dangerous reputations. Bay gelding: a castrated male horse with a reddish brown coat. Stealing one was no petty matter; horses were enormously valuable property, and horse theft was treated as a serious felony that could carry the heaviest of consequences. Old Bailey: London's central criminal court, standing next to Newgate Prison. For centuries it was the last courtroom many defendants would ever see. Its name alone carried weight enough to make a hardened man go pale. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

  5. Sep 21

    Episode 019: William Colthouse: The Jacobite Highwayman of Yorkshire

    Send us your Feedback William Colthouse is a well-educated Yorkshire man with firm religious principles and even firmer political convictions; it is these convictions that first drag him into the orbit of criminality. As recorded in Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals, his outspoken Jacobite sympathies land him inside Newgate, where the company he keeps teaches him a new and darker set of skills. What emerges from this true crime account is a figure caught between conscience and temptation: a man who knows the difference between right and wrong yet finds the lure of easy money irresistible once honest labour loses its shine. His story is shaped by political loyalties, family bonds, and a restlessness that refuses to be tamed by ordinary work. The roads of Georgian England are waiting, and for a man like Colthouse, every choice narrows the path ahead. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Hereditary rights: in the early eighteenth century this phrase was politically explosive. It referred to the belief that the crown passed by divine bloodline alone, and that Parliament had no authority to redirect the succession. For Jacobites like Colthouse, hereditary right meant the exiled Stuart line still held the only legitimate claim to the throne; to say so aloud under the new Hanoverian king was sedition. Jacobite: from the Latin 'Jacobus' for James, a Jacobite was a supporter of the deposed Stuart dynasty, particularly James II and his descendants. In the reign of George I, professing Jacobite sympathies was not merely unfashionable; it was dangerous enough to land a man in prison. Seditious words: today sedition feels like a term from dusty law textbooks, but in Georgian England it was a potent weapon. Speaking against the king or the Protestant succession could be prosecuted as a crime in itself; no riot or rebellion required. Words alone could put you in chains. Journeyman: not a traveller, though the word hints at journeys. A journeyman was a skilled worker who had completed his apprenticeship but did not yet run his own shop. He worked for a master, hired by the day; the word comes from the French 'journee,' meaning a day's work. In Colthouse's case, he worked as a journeyman joiner: a qualified carpenter labouring for wages rather than profit. Expeditions on the road: a polite euphemism for highway robbery. The phrase lends a gentleman's gloss to what was in reality armed theft on the king's highways. Authors of the period sometimes deployed this sort of language with a wink, as though robbing travellers were a kind of sporting venture. Gridiron: a flat cooking grate made of iron bars set over a fire, used for grilling meat. That soldiers would press a man's face onto one that was red-hot gives a visceral sense of the casual brutality of alehouse brawls in this era; the scar Colthouse carried from it would later be mistaken for evidence of an entirely different crime. Condemnation: today we condemn ideas or behaviour, but in the criminal courts of the eighteenth century the word had a literal and lethal meaning. To lie under condemnation was to have received a death sentence and to be waiting, usually in the condemned cells of Newgate, for the appointed day. Temporal concerns: in Colthouse's farewell letter, temporal does not mean 'temporary.' It means worldly; of this earthly life as opposed to the spiritual. A man about to leave the world is expected to shed temporal concerns and fix his thoughts on the eternal; that Colthouse could not do so entirely makes his letter all the more human. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

  6. Sep 14

    Episode 018: James Shaw: Highwayman and Murderer of the Hampstead Road

    Send us your Feedback James Shaw is a man who cannot settle. Born into a family with the means to set him on a respectable path, he drifts through one trade after another, never sticking, never satisfied; Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals captures him at the precise moment restlessness curdles into something far more dangerous. He blames a negligent wife, he blames circumstance, but beneath every excuse lies a temperament that finds honest labour unbearable. It is a story that belongs to the oldest tradition of true crime: the man who convinces himself that taking from others is no crime at all. The Hampstead Road stretches ahead of him in the dark, full of coaches and strangers and the particular kind of trouble that cannot be undone. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Unsettledness: today we might say 'restlessness' or 'instability,' but in the early eighteenth century this word carried a sharper edge. It suggested a constitutional defect, a soul that refused to be governed; not merely fidgeting, but a deep incapacity for the discipline that society demanded. Forger of gun-locks: nothing to do with forgery in the criminal sense. A forger here is a metalworker, someone who shapes iron at a forge. Shaw learns enough of this honest trade to occasionally earn money by it, though he prefers to earn it other ways entirely. Footpad: a highway robber who operates on foot rather than on horseback. The distinction mattered enormously in this era; the mounted highwayman could at least pretend to a certain glamour, while the footpad was seen as the lowest and most brutal kind of street predator. Goldfinches: Shaw uses this as slang for gold coins. When he tells his victims he 'fancied the goldfinches were not yet flown,' he means he suspects there is far more money hidden in the coach. It is a piece of criminal wit, delivered at swordpoint. Knights of the road: an ironic, almost affectionate term for highwaymen, borrowing the language of chivalry to describe armed robbery. The phrase was common in the period and captures the strange way popular culture romanticised men who were, by law, common felons. Committed: in legal usage, to be committed meant to be formally sent to prison by a magistrate to await trial. It did not imply conviction; it meant the wheels of justice had begun turning, and they rarely turned in the prisoner's favour. Tile kilns by Pancras: the brick and tile kilns that stood near the parish of St Pancras, then a semi-rural area on London's northern fringe. It was exactly the kind of lonely, industrial borderland where footpads thrived; close enough to the city for victims, remote enough for violence. Pinder of Wakefield: a well-known tavern near the Gray's Inn Road area. Named after a figure from Robin Hood legend, it served in this story as the place where a dying man was carried after being attacked; a grim irony, given its folkloric associations with outlawry. Fact: in eighteenth century legal language, 'fact' often meant 'deed' or 'criminal act.' When the text says 'for a fact of murder,' it means for the deed of murder; the word had a harder, more accusatory weight than it does today. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

  7. Sep 7

    Episode 017: John Smith: The Soldier Who Pulled the Trigger

    Send us your Feedback John Smith is a man shaped by war; bold, fierce, and trained to violence on the battlefields of Flanders, he returns to civilian life carrying a soldier's instincts into a world that has no place for them. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals preserves his story as one of the most compact and unsettling true crime accounts of the early eighteenth century: a decorated veteran who squanders his pay and drifts toward theft and rage. There is something volatile inside him that the wars merely sharpened. Discharged from military and naval service alike, he arrives in London with empty pockets, a jealous temper, and a loaded pistol he is not afraid to use. What waits for a man like Smith, once the machinery of Georgian justice catches his scent, is a question the age answered without hesitation. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Trusses: not medical supports or roof beams as we might think today. In a military context, trusses were bundles of forage or provisions gathered for horses and troops. When the captain's party was 'obliged to leave their trusses behind them,' they were abandoning their supplies under enemy pressure; a small humiliation that sets up Smith's reckless act of bravery. Livery: today the word conjures up stables or taxi hire, but in the eighteenth century livery meant the distinctive uniform or clothing worn by a servant or soldier to mark who they belonged to. Smith's yellow livery becomes a kind of disguise; its colour just plausible enough to pass among French troops at a distance. Walloon: the French dialect spoken in the southern provinces of the Low Countries, what is now Belgium. Smith spoke it badly enough to sound like a native Frenchman, which is a wonderfully backhanded compliment; his incompetence in the language was, paradoxically, his camouflage. Clapping: nothing to do with applause. To clap something in this era meant to place it swiftly and forcefully. Smith 'clapped a gag in his mouth' and later 'clapped a pistol to her breast'; the word carries an almost percussive violence, a sudden sharp motion. Fray: a noisy disturbance or fight, from the old word 'affray.' Today we might say a brawl or a commotion. The word still echoes in legal language, where an affray remains a public order offence, but in Smith's London it was simply what happened when a man waved a pistol in a crowded room. Lewd women: Smith uses this phrase repeatedly and it does not merely mean sexually immoral. In the eighteenth century, lewd carried a broader sense of wicked, base, or disreputable. Smith blames these women for his downfall; whether they deserve the charge is another matter entirely. Sessions at the Old Bailey: the periodic sittings of London's central criminal court, held roughly eight times a year. Being convicted 'at the next sessions' meant the wheels of justice turned with startling speed; there was little delay between arrest and trial in Georgian England. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

  8. Aug 31

    Episode 016: John Jones: The Young Pickpocket of Holborn

    Send us your Feedback John Jones is barely a man when he stumbles into the trade that will define him. As Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals recounts, he is a boy raised with too much tenderness and too little discipline; a creature of idleness born in Holborn to parents who indulge every whim, hoping the flaws will simply fall away with age. They never do. Refused by every honest trade and cut off by his own family, Jones drifts into a London underworld where true crime begins not with malice but with boredom, poverty, and the wrong friend met at the wrong hour. The city he moves through is dense with bodies and opportunity, and the distance between a restless young man and a condemned one is terrifyingly short. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Malefactor: today this word survives mainly in legal documents and old novels, sounding almost quaint. In the eighteenth century it carried real weight; it simply meant a criminal, an evildoer, someone who had done wrong in the eyes of the law. When the text calls Jones a malefactor, it is not decorating him with drama; it is classifying him the way a court clerk would. Put him out upon liking: this phrase describes a trial arrangement where a young person was placed with a tradesman on a probationary basis before formal apprenticeship papers were signed. Think of it as a working interview that could last weeks. If the boy and the master suited each other, an apprenticeship followed; if not, the boy was sent home. Jones, of course, found fault with every one. Reluctancy: an older form of what we now call reluctance. It meant the same thing; an unwillingness or hesitation. The longer, slightly clumsier version was common in Georgian prose and has since been quietly trimmed by usage. Blind alehouse: not a pub for the visually impaired. A blind alehouse was a disreputable drinking den, often unlicensed, tucked away in a back lane or cellar where it could operate out of sight of authorities. The word 'blind' here means hidden or obscure; the kind of place where criminal business could be discussed without being overheard. Pocket: in this context, a pocket is not part of a garment but a separate pouch tied around the waist beneath the skirts. Women carried their valuables in these detachable bags, which is why pickpockets and cutpurses targeted them specifically. To 'whip off her pocket' meant to cut or snatch this pouch away from her body entirely. By-alley: a narrow side passage off a main street; what we might now call an alleyway or a back lane. In Georgian London these cramped passages were everywhere, providing escape routes for thieves and cover for all manner of dark transactions. Capital in its nature: this phrase means the crime carried the death penalty. In the eighteenth century, a staggering number of offences were capital; theft above a certain value, pickpocketing, housebreaking, even shoplifting could send a person to the gallows. The phrase sounds clinical, almost bureaucratic, but what it really says is: this will cost you your life. Sessions: the regular sittings of a criminal court, particularly the Old Bailey sessions held roughly every six weeks in London. Being 'condemned at the next sessions' meant the wheels of justice turned quickly; there was no long wait on death row in the modern sense. Your trial came around with the calendar, and so did your sentence. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive. Support the show

See All (24)

Trailer

About

Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is a true crime podcast unlike any other; because every word of it was written nearly 300 years ago.  Each week, we read aloud one chapter from a remarkable book first published in London in 1735: a sprawling collection of murderers, highwaymen, coiners, housebreakers, pirates and worse, recorded in vivid and unsparing detail.  The crimes are real. The voices are authentic. And the world they reveal, brutal, strange, and surprisingly familiar, has been waiting three centuries to be heard again. True crime did not begin with podcasts. It began here by the burning light of a candle.

Information