Newgate Calendar (Wordsworth Classics of World Literature)

I received this book as a birthday gift from my father, who bought it because he liked the cover (the cover on mine is different than the one shown). I decided to read it, and what I found was one of the most intriguing and (often) disturbing pieces of literature I have ever read.This book is a collection of short essays chronicling the lives of some very (and not so very) nasty people who were imprisoned in the Newgate prison from the late 17th and early 18th century England. The first tale is about a family of thieves who would attack, kill, rob, and then consume the bodies of passerby through the neighboring woods they lived in. This family was totally inbred and large... and lived in a cave. There is the tale of John Dramatti, a poor Italian immigrant who came to England in search of a better life, was tricked into marrying an old woman who claimed she was royalty, and after years of mental torment, accidentally killed her. He was sentenced to death, nonetheless.In this book is a detailed example of the variosu things you cannot do in the English forests (including poaching, farming on the land, taking trees or kindling, having the intention to rob someone there, etc...) - all punishable by death.There are many prisoners in this book who are sympathetic, and many who are abbsolute demons and deserved the punishment they received. This book is also a wonderful account of the law system in early 18th century England, and was extremely helpful in an AP European History essay I had to write about crime in Europe thoughout the years.All in all, this is more than a history lesson, it is a wonderful view into the past (originally published in the late 1700's), and is a must-read for history and law buffs, and those interested in folklore and legends.