Most people know that England shipped thousands of convicts to Australia, but few are aware that colonial America was the original destination for Britain's unwanted criminals. In the 18th century, thousands of British convicts were separated from their families, chained together in the hold of a ship, and carried off to America, sometimes for the theft of a mere handkerchief.What happened to these convicts once they arrived in America? Did they prosper in an environment of unlimited opportunity, or were they ostracized by the other colonists? Anthony Vaver tells the stories of the petty thieves and professional criminals who were punished by being sent across the ocean to work on plantations. In bringing to life this forgotten chapter in American history, he challenges the way we think about immigration to early America.The book also includes a helpful appendix with tips on researching individual convicts transported to America.

The execution narrative was a popular genre in early modern England. This facsimile edition draws together a representative selection of texts to show the evolution of the genre from the late sixteenth century to the end of public execution in England nearly 300 years later.

A fascinating collection of eighteenth century biographies of street robbers, pickpockets, burglers, horse thieves and confidence tricksters. Background historical information and footnotes are provided.

The execution narrative was a popular genre in early modern England. This facsimile edition draws together a representative selection of texts to show the evolution of the genre from the late sixteenth century to the end of public execution in England nearly 300 years later.

Through studies of beheaded Irish traitors, smugglers hung in chains on the English coast, suicides subjected to the surgeon's knife in Dresden and the burial of executed Nazi war criminals, this volume provides a fresh perspective on the history of capital punishment. The chapters 'Introduction: A Global History of Execution and the Criminal Corpse' and 'The Gibbet in the Landscape: Locating the Criminal Corpse in Mid-Eighteenth-Century England' are open access under a CC BY 4.0 license.