Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences

Around London's Newgate prison and Tyburn, accounts of individual offenders become a record of punishment as public spectacle. Edited by Arthur L. Hayward, this collection draws on papers and memoirs published in 1735. Its introduction describes the location and changing structures of the gallows, the efforts of prisoners' friends to obtain pardons, and the crowds that gathered along the route to Tyburn. The contents organise the material as a succession of named lives.

An account of suspects pursued in Rotterdam shows the collection's mixture of biography, legal history and moral commentary. English newspapers, a diplomatic representative and local officers all enter the narrative as the authorities seek men who have fled abroad. The narrator interprets their capture through providence and personal wrongdoing. For readers studying early British crime writing, the volume offers examples of how records of offences were turned into warnings, character portraits and accounts of public punishment.