The Life of Captain James Whitney. Containing, his Most Remarkable Robberies and other Adventures … To His Execution Near Smithfield Bars, … the First of February 1692/3
- [iv], 30 pp. 1 vols. 4to
- London: Printed for A.R. near Temple-Bar, 1693
London: Printed for A.R. near Temple-Bar, 1693. First edition. [iv], 30 pp. 1 vols. 4to. Nineteenth-century Dutch combed marbled boards with maroon roan spine titled in gilt. Binding rubbed, internally clean. Very good. First edition. [iv], 30 pp. 1 vols. 4to. “every Man’s handsome that goes to be hang’d”
Stirring account of the life and crimes and amorous exploits of Capt. Whitney, who began stealing deer while a young butcher’s apprentice, soon progressed to robbery. When he encounters an Irish mercenary on the road to London and bids him, “Stand and Deliver … Your Purse, you Dog”, his victim launches into a tale of woe, a desperate and futile attempt to hold onto the 20 guineas in his purse. Whitney’s undoing begins in an exchange with the spirited wife of a man, “so Cow-hearted, in so tame a submission”, whom Whitney has robbed. He makes an assignation with her, and she deserts her husband, and they run off. “But as Men of his cautious Profession generally make their Residence, like Tartar Camps, not long in one place, but always in motion, he danced her about from one quarter of the Town to another.” After they settle in Hounds-Ditch, Whitney is sold out by a landlord with his eye on the £40 bounty, and in his flight he turns into a dead end: “put into a Coach, he was ushered in great Ceremony (especially if Crowds and Noise be any part of State) to Newgate”.
RARE. ESTC: R4823 (Eton, Huntington, Toronto). Provenance: Ricky Jay (bookplate)
Stirring account of the life and crimes and amorous exploits of Capt. Whitney, who began stealing deer while a young butcher’s apprentice, soon progressed to robbery. When he encounters an Irish mercenary on the road to London and bids him, “Stand and Deliver … Your Purse, you Dog”, his victim launches into a tale of woe, a desperate and futile attempt to hold onto the 20 guineas in his purse. Whitney’s undoing begins in an exchange with the spirited wife of a man, “so Cow-hearted, in so tame a submission”, whom Whitney has robbed. He makes an assignation with her, and she deserts her husband, and they run off. “But as Men of his cautious Profession generally make their Residence, like Tartar Camps, not long in one place, but always in motion, he danced her about from one quarter of the Town to another.” After they settle in Hounds-Ditch, Whitney is sold out by a landlord with his eye on the £40 bounty, and in his flight he turns into a dead end: “put into a Coach, he was ushered in great Ceremony (especially if Crowds and Noise be any part of State) to Newgate”.
RARE. ESTC: R4823 (Eton, Huntington, Toronto). Provenance: Ricky Jay (bookplate)