The Annals of Newgate; Or, Malefactors Register. 4 Vols. 37 Plates

1776. London: Printed for J. Wenman, 1776. 4 vols.. London: Printed for J. Wenman, 1776. 4 vols. Illustrated Accounts of Notorious Criminals "Calculated to Expose the Deformity of Vice" Villette, John [d.1799], Primary Author. The Annals of Newgate; Or, Malefactors Register. Containing a Particular and Circumstantial Account of the Lives, Transactions, And Trials of the Most Notorious Malefactors, Who Have Suffered an Ignominious Death for Their Offences, viz. for Parricide, Murder, Treason, Robbery, Burglary, Piracy, Coining, Forgery, And Rapes [...] By the Rev. Mr. Villette, Ordinary of Newgate, And Others. London: Printed for J. Wenman, 1776. Four volumes. 37 copperplates, 3 are frontispieces in Volumes I-III. All plates present, text complete. Octavo (8-1/4" x 5-1/4"; 21 x 13.3 cm). Contemporary mottled calf, gilt rules to boards, gilt spines with raised bands and red and green morocco lettering pieces, gilt tooling to board edges, edges of text block rouged. Light rubbing to boards, small gouge to front board of Vol. III, moderate rubbing and minor surface abrasion along joints, corners bumped. Moderate toning to interior, faint offsetting from plates to facing leaves, occasional light foxing, small clean tears to edges of a few leaves in each volume, some touching text without loss. Vol I: small tear to margin of pp. 87-88 without loss to text, stain to upper margin of pp. 133-139 touching headline without loss to legibility. Vol. III: lower outside corner of plate facing p. 169 lacking with minor loss to first two letters of caption but no loss to image, plates facing pp. 169 & 312 loosening and very lightly edgeworn. A very appealing set. $2,500. * Only edition. Presented by Villette as a "beacon to warn the rising generation," this chronicle provides accounts of some of the most infamous criminals of eighteenth-century England, such as Sarah Malcolm, Eugene Aram, Elizabeth Brownrigg and Richard Turpin. The plates, some of them quite lurid, depict criminals, crimes and execution. Didactic and salacious in equal measure, this "gallows literature had such an enormous appeal that the authentic autobiographies often had to compete with gross forgeries and even the Ordinary's account...Eventually, the Ordinary's accounts gained the greatest appeal and became one of the most profitable perquisites of that office." Villette, who served as the Ordinary from 1774 to 1799, was "undoubtedly...the most opportu.