The whole particulars of a most barbarous, cruel, and horrid murder….

printed text

Printed in four columns. With two large woodcuts beneath the title illustrating the murder and the discovery of the body. A third, smaller woodcut depicting the burial of the victim appears in the lower right, above a poem.
The Radlett murder, also know as the Elstree murder. The victim was William Weare was murdered by John Thurtell, who owed him a gambling debt, and his accomplices Joseph Hunt and William Probert.

  • Title: The whole particulars of a most barbarous, cruel, and horrid murder, committed upon the body of W. Weare, Esq. — : together with the dreadful confessions of Hunt and Probart [sic].
  • Publication: [London] : J. Catnach, printer, 2, Monmouth-Ct., 7 Dials, London, [1823]

Catalog Record

File 523 W362 823++

Acquired August 2022

The new and complete Newgate calendar

8 volume set of books

  • Author: Jackson, William, active 1795, author.
  • Title: The new and complete Newgate calendar : or, Malefactor’s universal register : containing, new and authentic accounts of all the lives, adventures, exploits and last dying-speeches, confessions, (as well as letters to their relatives, never before published) of the most notorious criminals, and the violators of laws of their country (of both sexes and denominations), who have suffered death and other exemplary punishments … from the year 1700, to the present time : the whole properly arranged from the records of the courts / by William Jackson.
  • Edition: A new edition with great additions, illustrated with elegant copper plates.
  • Publication: London : Printed for Alexander Hogg & Co., Paternoster Row, and G. Offor, and Sons, Tower Hill, 1818.

Catalog Record

52 N45 818

Acquired July 2022

A genuine narrative of the lives, characters and trials….

printed text

  • Title: A genuine narrative of the lives, characters and trials of the four following malefactors : Viz. James Cotes, for a highway-robbery; Richard William Vaughan for forging and counterfeiting bank-notes, in order to deceive Miss-, his sweetheart; William Stevens for stealing twenty-nine yards of woollen cloth, value eighteen pounds. And William Boodger for forging an inland bill of exchange for the payment of forty pounds. With some account of Richard William Vaughan, and William Stevens, never before published, interspersed in their characters.
  • Publication: London : Printed for C. Spendelow, in White-Friers, Fleet-Street. MDCCLVIII [1758]

Catalog Record

52 G341 758

Acquired November 2021

William MacMurdo Duncan Scrapbook

printed text - further description below

A scrapbook seemingly begun by William McMurdo Duncan in the 1790s, based on the earliest manuscript entry entitled “Books Belonging to William McMurdo Duncan 10th Feby. 1799” with later additions perhaps made by other members of his family, as the names of William’s wife Marianne and his daughter Helen are inscribed on the front endpaper. The scrapbook includes newspaper clippings and broadsides relating to the city of Liverpool; shipping and naval news; the Napoleonic Wars; reports of the royal families of England and France; local news stories tending to reports of dramatic accidents and crimes, including reports of the abuse of servants and presumanbly enslaved girls. Also included are two manuscript poems (1816) and a manuscript list of books. Also included is a printed form, completed in manuscript, from New College Manchester, dated “May 1st, 1797”, for a Norwegian student, “Mr. Kield Moestre” (1776-1805), which gives his grades for two months (“March & April”) of lectures in the subjects of languages, mathematics, and natural philosophy. A page from the Observer (no. 1249) from 29 October 1815 includes a large woodcut “Island of Saint Helena” with “A descriptive sketch of the Island of Saint Helena”. Clippings from a column “Cabinet”. Laid in the front are over two dozen clippings from the column “Cabinet” that provide spiritual advice about conduct of life and marriage and other religious topics dated from the 1830s.

  • Creator: Duncan, William MacMurdo, 1772-1853.
  • Title: William MacMurdo Duncan Scrapbook : printed text and manuscript.
  • Production: Liverpool?, England, circa 1795-1816.

Catalog Record

LWL Mss vol. 270

Acquired October 2021

James Macleane, the gentleman highwayman at the bar

description below“A broadside on the trial of the robber James Maclaine; with an etching showing the interior of a court room, the judges seated on the left, Maclaine standing on the right, in the middle background a lady standing, giving evidence in his favour; and with engraved title and letterpress text giving an account of the trial in three columns.”–British Museum online catalogue.

 

  • Author: Maclaine, James, 1724-1750.
  • Title: James Macleane, the gentleman highwayman at the bar.
  • Published: [London] : Printed for T. Fox in the Old Baily. Publishd according to Act of Parliament Sept 29, 1750.

Catalog Record

750.09.29.01+

Acquired May 2020

A true copy of the paper, delivered the night before her execution

title page

  • Author: Malcolm, Sarah, approximately 1710-1733, author.
  • Title: A true copy of the paper, delivered the night before her execution / by Sarah Malcom, to the Rev. Mr. Piddington … March 6th, 1732-3.
  • Publication: London : Printed for J. Wilford, behind the Chapter-House, near St. Paul’s, MDCCXXXII [1732]

Catalog Record

55 M243 733

Acquired September 2020

Authentic account of forgeries and frauds….

title page

  • Uniform Title: Authentic account of forgeries and frauds of various kinds committed by Charles Price, otherwise Patch.
  • Title: A new edition, being a more minute and particular account of that consummate adept in deception, Charles Price, otherwise Patch, many years a stock-broker and lottery-office-keeper in London and Westminster : in this edition the whole of his various forgeries and frauds are circumstantially related … till he began that desperate undertaking of forgeries on the Bank of England … : with this edition is given as a frontispiece an exact representation of his person, in the disguise he wore when he negotiated his first parcel of counterfeit bank notes, in the year 1780, and likewise another portrait of him in his usual dress.
  • Publication: London : Printed for the editor, (by whose permission a part only of these memoirs first appeared in the English Chronicle) and sold by G. Kearsley, at no. 46, in Fleet-Street, MDCCLXXXVI [1786]

Catalog Record

53 P925 S786

Acquired April 2020

Sarah Malcolm

description below

A reversed copy of a Hogarth print. Portrait of Sarah Malcolm, shown three-quarter length and seated as she leans with her hands on a table to left, looking back over her left shoulder. She wears a white apron and a white shawl over her head. A bloody knife has been added, on the table.

 

  • Title: Sarah Malcolm [graphic] : executed in Fleet Street, March the 7th 1733 for robbing [the] chambers of Mrs. Lydia Duncomb in [the] Temple, & murdering her, Eliz. Harrison, & Ann Price / Hogarth pinx.
  • Edition: [State with price burnished from plate].
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [not before 1733]

Catalog Record

55 M243 733

Acquired November 2020

 

Collection of broadsides about the Tottenham Park Association

description below

collection comprising eighteen broadsides that trace the initial proposal, founding and development of the Tottenham Park Association. Most of the notices offer rewards for the recovery of stolen property, such as livestock, a set of curtains, a gate and a fence, apprehending offenders and removing “gipsies or other vagrants from the parishes.” The other broadsides relate to the governance of the association.

 

  • Creator: Tottenham Park Association.
  • Title:Collection of broadsides about the Tottenham Park Association : printed text.
  • Publication: Marlborough, England, 1819.

Catalog Record

64 M347 819

Acquired June 2020

A harlot’s progress. Plate IV

description belowA copy in reverse of William Hogarth’s Plate 4 of A harlot’s progress: A scene in Bridewell prison with Moll Hackabout and the other inmates beating hemp under the supervision of a stern warder holding a cane. Moll is still dressed in her finery, but a one-eyed female attendant fingers the lace lappet hanging from her cap and her serving-woman sits before her in Moll’s elegant shoes; next to her a fellow inmate picks vermin off her clothes. Next to Moll is a gambler, a torn playing card on the floor in front of him; behind her, a man stands with his hands in a pillory on which hangs a sign “Better to Work than Stand thus.” Further down the wall is a whipping post with the words “The Wages of Idleness.” On a shudder against the back wall is an effigy of Sir John Gonson (“Sr. J G”).

  • Title: A harlot’s progress. Plate IV [graphic] : In Bridewell beating hemp = Dans la maison de correction a battre le chanvre / invented & painted by Wm. Hogarth.
  • Publication: [London] : [publisher not identified], [not before 25 March 1768]

Catalog Record 

Hogarth 768.03.25.12+ Box 210

Acquired December 2019