perhaps, be accused of dilating too much upon the character of the highwayman, and we plead guilty to the charge. But we found it impossible to avoid running a little into extremes. Our earliest associations are connected with sunny scenes in Cheshire, said to have been haunted by Turpin; and with one very dear to us — from whose lips, now, alas! silent, we have listened to many stories of his exploits — he was a sort of hero. We have had a singular delight in recounting his feats and hairbreadth escapes; and if the reader derives only half as much pleasure from the perusal of his adventures as we have had in narrating them, our satisfaction will be complete. Perhaps, we may have placed him in too favorable a point of view — and yet we know not. As upon those of more important personages, many doubts rest upon his history. Such as we conceive him to have been, we have drawn him — hoping that the benevolent reader, upon finishing our Tale, will arrive at the same conclusion; and, in the words of the quaint old Prologue to the Prince of Prigs’ Revels,
—————— Thank that man,
Can make each thief a complete Roscian!
Jack Sheppard
EPOCH THE FIRST. 1703. JONATHAN WILD.
Chapter 1. The Widow and her Child.
Chapter 3. The Master of the Mint.
Chapter 4. The Roof and the Window.
EPOCH THE SECOND. 1715. THAMES DARRELL.
Chapter 1. The Idle Apprentice.
Chapter 4. Mr. Kneebone and his Friends.
Chapter 6. The first Step towards the Ladder.
Chapter 7. Brother and Sister.
Chapter 9. Consequences of the Theft.
Chapter 12. Saint Giles’s Round-house.
Chapter 15. The Robbery in Willesden Church.
Chapter 16. Jonathan Wild’s House in the Old Bailey.
Chapter 18. How Jack Sheppard broke out of the Cage at Willesden.
EPOCH THE THIRD. 1724. THE PRISON-BREAKER.
Chapter 2. The Burglary at Dollis Hill.
Chapter 3. Jack Sheppard’s Quarrel with Jonathan Wild.
Chapter 4. Jack Sheppard’s Escape from the New Prison.
Chapter 6. Winifred receives two Proposals.
Chapter 7. Jack Sheppard warns Thames Darrell.
Chapter 10. How Jack Sheppard got out of the Condemned Hold.
