By Charles Dickens

From the Preface: “The late Mr Waterton having, some time ago, expressed his opinion that ravens are gradually becoming extinct in England, I offered the few following words about my experience of these birds. The raven in this story is a compound of two great originals, of whom I was, at different times, the proud possessor. The first was in the bloom of his youth, when he was discovered in a modest retirement in London, by a friend of mine, and given to me. He had from the first, as Sir Hugh Evans says of Anne Page, ‘good gifts’, which he improved by study and attention in a most exemplary manner. He slept in a stable—generally on horseback —and so terrified a Newfoundland dog by his preternatural sagacity, that he has been known, by the mere superiority of his genius, to walk off unmolested with the dog’s dinner, from before his face…”

London Chapmwn Hall. 1870. 770p

From the Cover: In this, his most famous book, Genet charts his progress through Europe and the 1930s in rags, hunger, contempt, fatigue and vice. Spain, Italy, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Nazi Germany, Belgium . . . everywhere the pattern is the same: bars, dives, flop-houses; robbery, prison and expulsion. This is a voyage of discovery beyond all moral laws; the expression of a philosophy of perverted vice, the working out of an aesthetic of degradation. The cover shows 'Head on Stand' (1947)b y Alberto Giacometti, in the Maeght Collection.

London. Penguin Classics. 1950s? THIS BOOK CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Melvin Purvis with Alex Tresniowski

By the end of 1934 Melvin Purvis was, besides President Roosevelt, the most famous man in America. Just thirty-one years old, he presided over the neophyte FBI's remarkable sweep of the great Public Enemies of the American Depression -- John Dillinger; Pretty Boy Floyd; Baby Face Nelson. America finally had its hero in the War on Crime, and the face of all the conquering G-Men belonged to Melvin Purvis. Yet these triumphs sowed the seeds of his eventual ruin. With each new capture, each new headline touting Purvis as the scourge of gangsters, one man's implacable resentment grew. J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI, was immensely jealous of the agent who had been his friend and prot'g', and vowed that Melvin Purvis would be brought down. A vendetta began that would not end even with Purvis's death. For more than three decades Hoover trampled Purvis's reputation, questioned his courage and competence, and tried to erase his name from all records of the FBI's greatest triumphs.

Alston Purvis is Melvin's only surviving son. With the benefit of a unique family archive of documents, new testimony from colleagues and friends of Melvin Purvis and witnesses to the events of 1934, he has produced a grippingly authentic new telling of the gangster era, seen from the perspective of the pursuers. By finally setting the record straight about his father, he sheds new light on what some might call Hoover's original sin -- a personal vendetta that is one of the earliest and clearest examples of Hoover's bitter, destructive paranoia..

New York: Public Affairs, 2009. 400p

By T.J. English

Here is the shocking true saga of the Irish American mob. In Paddy Whacked, bestselling author and organized crime expert T. J. English brings to life nearly two centuries of Irish American gangsterism, which spawned such unforgettable characters as Mike "King Mike" McDonald, Chicago's subterranean godfather; Big Bill Dwyer, New York's most notorious rumrunner during Prohibition; Mickey Featherstone, troubled Vietnam vet turned Westies gang leader; and James "Whitey" Bulger, the ruthless and untouchable Southie legend. Stretching from the earliest New York and New Orleans street wars through decades of bootlegging scams, union strikes, gang wars, and FBI investigations, Paddy Whacked is a riveting tour de force that restores the Irish American gangster to his rightful preeminent place in our criminal history -- and penetrates to the heart of the American experience.

New York: HarperCollins, 2006. 480p.

By John Milton Scanlan

A History of the "Gun Men" And Outlaws, and a Life-Story of the Greatest Sheriff of the Old Southwest. “Though simple and not attended by ostentation, the ceremonial was very impressive, and there were tears for the brave and generous Pat Garrett as his mortal remains were consigned to earth.”

El Paso, TX: Carleton F. Dodge, 1908. 42p.

By Ruggero Scaturro

In July 2021, the president of the Antimafia Commission of the Italian Parliament – established in 1963 to look into the phenomenon of organized crime in Italy and assess the adequacy of existing legislative and administrative measures to counter it – declassified the minutes of a meeting between the Commission, the celebrated judge, Giovanni Falcone, and the other prosecuting magistrates of the so-called ‘Antimafia Pool’ of judges (see below). The meeting was held in Palermo, Sicily, in June 1990.1 Barring cases concerning national security or the safety of public officials, over recent decades the Commission has developed the practice of publishing the minutes of all its meetings, demonstrating a commitment to transparency and the rule of law. The decision to declassify this 117-page record of the meeting, however, comes more than a year after a commitment taken by the Commission’s president, Nicola Morra, in 2020 to declassify all the Commission’s minutes from 1963 to 2001.2 Having scrutinized the entire archive of its minutes, Italian civil society movement I Cittadini Contro le Mafie e la Corruzione (‘citizens against the mafia and corruption’) realized that the 1990 document was the only one yet to be made public. Given the potential relevance of its contents, they formally requested the Commission’s president to keep to his word and declassify it.3 A full unofficial translation of the minutes of the meeting is available at: https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/gitoc-falcone-annex.pdf. From the initial pages of the minutes, it emerges that the 1990 meeting had been convened to discuss the reasons for delays in investigations carried out by the Antimafia Pool. When discussing these delays in the magistrates’ work, however, Falcone went on to disclose what appear to be new details pertaining to the context of the unsolved assassination a decade earlier of Piersanti Mattarella, the Governor of Sicily and brother of the current President of the Italian Republic, Sergio Mattarella.4 Mattarella, whose killers are still unknown – although there is consensus that Cosa Nostra kingpins were behind the hit – arguably personifies the anti-mafia movement in Sicily since the early 1960s, a period in which he began to gain international recognition and support for his good governance.5 The following section offers an analysis of those parts of the minutes that deal with a theory Falcone had developed that offered, in his mind, a reliable investigative route to uncovering the truth of the unresolved murder of the Governor of Sicily. In addition, thanks to an interview with Judge Antonio Balsamo, current President of the Court of Palermo, it sets out an explanation of how Cosa Nostra may have teamed up with an unusual ally to eliminate the respected politician.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 26p.

By M.H. Abrams..

The effect of opium visions on the works of DeQuincey, Crabbe, Francis Thompson, and Coleridge. “ Four eminent English authors were addicted to opium. Each author spent a considerable part of his life in a dream world which differs amazingly from that in which we live. Each author utilized the imagery from these dreams in his literary creations, and sometimes, under the direct inspiration of opium, achieved his best writing. Thus, a knowledge of the opium world these authors inhabited is essential to a complete understanding of their work. In the cases where critics have not entirely neglected this factor, their analysis of opium effects is too often a flight of conjecture unimpeded by any burden of definite knowledge. Strangely enough, although “there is hardly a more difficult chapter in the whole of pharmacology than . . . a thoroughly exact analysis of the effects of drugs,”(Louis Lewin, Phantastica, London, 1931, Preface, p. x.) this is just the field wherein each man seems to consider himself expert. When a critic of established reputation is misled into characterizing all of Coleridge’s finest poems as “the chance brain-blooms of a season of physiological ecstasy,”(John Mackinnon Robertson, New Essays towards a Critical Method, London, 1897, p. 190) it is time to examine the facts.

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  Accordingly, I have based my investigation of the nature of opium phenomena on the statements of habituates and the findings of psychological authorities. Moreover, since to postulate addiction to opium merely from the “abnormality” of a man’s work. although the usual method, is illogical, my approach to each of the authors under consideration is biographical. Limitations of the length allowed for this thesis have imposed limitations in subject. I have dealt with no drug but opium, except in a passing reference in the Notes. Foreign authors I have had to omit; and of English authors I have been able to treat at length only those four whose long addiction to the drug is certain: DeQuincey, Crabbe, Francis Thompson, and Coleridge. Even with these men, it has been necessary to cut down evidence to a minimum, but indications for further investigation will be found in the Notes. There is no definite proof of addiction to opium in the lives of James Thomson and Poe. In their works, too, indications of the influence of alcohol are so strong that it would be difficult to distinguish any possible effect of opium. Since the date of the inception of Coleridge’s opium habit is necessary for a determination of the influence of the drug on his great creative period, I have gathered in an appendix all the evidence available on this agitated question.”

New York: Octagon Books, 1971. 104p.

By Arthur Train.

New York: On the trail of the bad men. The district attorney. Human nature in the court room. Animals in court. Foolish laws. Sanctity by statute. Criminal law and common sense. Twelve good women and true. Beware of the dog! Marriage and divorce. Have you a lawyer? Is it a crime to be rich? A man born to be hanged cannot be drowned.

Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. 427p.

By Frank James.

With confessions of Dick Liddil and Clarence Hite, and history of the "James gang". In the town of Gallatin, Daviess county, Missouri, on July 31, 18S3, begun the most exciting trial ever held in the West, the trial of Frank James, the noted outlaw, for the murder of Frank McMillan during the robbing of a Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific passenger train, at Winston, Missouri, July 15, 1S81. The town was filled with people who had come from hundreds of miles around to attend the trial; a majority of them were friends of the James boys and the balance were against them, as there was no neutral ground. Many of those in attendance were known to be desperate men and it was fully expected there would be blood- shed before the trial was ended ; there being many rumors of old feuds to be settled, of plots to rescue the prisoner, etc. Excitement was at fever heat. Many depredations had been committed in that part of the country within a few preceding years, most of which had been attributed to the James gang.

Kansas City, MO: G. Miller, Jr., 1898. 348p.

By J.P. Johnston.

The Author's personal experiences with Sharpers, Gamblers, Agents, etc., and their many schemes devised to fieece the unsuspecting. The stories are based on actual happenings, and expose the ways and methods employed by the various "Grafters" met during thiry-five years of Hustling.

Chicago: Thompson & Thomas, 1906. 338p.

By Douglas Jerrold.

Edited, With An Introduction, By Walter Jerrold. The Editor has disciplined himself to receive With becoming moderation the tremendous expression of national gratitude consequent on the publication of this valuable work - the production of the late estimable Captain Barabbas Whitefeather. It was discovered among many other papers accidentally left at the lodgings Of the deceased, and placed in the hands of the Editor by the executors Of the lamented and - if a novel epithet may be applied to him.

London: Walter Scott ; New York: A. Lovell & Co., 1860. 242p.

By Stephen Burroughs.

Excerpt from Memoirs of Stephen Burroughs: A New and Revised Edition; With an Appendix, Containing Authentic Facts Respecting the Latter Part of His Life. In relating the facts of my life to you, I shall endeavor to give' as simple an account of them as I am able, without coloring or darkening any circumstances although the relation of many matters will give me a degree and kind of pain, which only they who feel can describe. I have often lamented my neglect of keeping minutes of the occurrences of my life, from time to time, when they were fresh in my memory, and alive to my feelings the disadvantage of which I now feel, when I come to run over in my mind the chain which has connected the events together. Many circumstances are entirely lost, and many more so obscurely remembered, that I shall not even attempt to give them a place in this account. Not to trouble you with any more preta tory remarks, I will proceed to the relation. I am the only son of a clergyman, living in Hanover, ih the State of new-hampshire; and, were any to expect merit from their parentage, I might {ustly look for that merit. But I am so far a republican, that I consider a man's merit to rest entirely with himself, without any regard to family, blood.

Boston: C. Gaylord, 1835. 370p.

Anonymous.

A full and complete exposure of all the swindles and rascalities carried on or originated in the metropolis.

New York: J.C. Haney, 1865. 118p.

By George MacGregor.

A Fragment From The Criminal Annals Of Scotland . The history of the Scottish nation has, unfortunately, been stained with many foul crimes, perpetrated either to serve personal ends and private ambition, or under the pretence of effecting the increased welfare of the people. But of all the criminal events that have occurred in Scotland, few have excited so deep, widespread, and lasting an interest as those which took place during what have been called the Resurrectionist Times, and notably, the dreadful series of murders perpetrated in the name of anatomical science by Burke and Hare.

Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1884) 331 pages.

By George W. Agee.

An accurate and faithful history of their exploits and adventures,. Since the days of the James and Younger brothers, bold types of Western outlawry, which 'were the 'immediate products of the late civil war, no banditti have challenged s"iich uiii- versal attention as those led by the famous out- law, Rube Burrow. The press of the country has woven, from the wildest woof of fancy, full many a fiction touching his daring deeds, and manufacturers of sensational literature have made of the bandit as mystical a genius as the "Headless Hessian of Sleepy Hollow." With the view of correcting the erroneous ac- counts heretofore given the public, I have yielded to the solicitations of many friends in the Express service and consented to give a faithful and accurate history, compiled from the official reports of the detectives, detailing the daring deeds, the thrilling scenes and hair-breadth escapes of the outlaw and his band of highwaymen. Important confessions of some of the principal participants in the eight train robberies committed, covering a period of nearly four years, are also given, withont color of fiction or the caprice of fancy. It is the province of this volume, therefore, not to laud evil endeavor, but rather to chronicle the hapless fate of those who, turning aside from the paths of peace and honor, elect to tread.

Chicago: The Henneberry Company, 1890. 224p.

By Charles Gustavus Mutzenberg.

Authentic history of the world renowned vendettas of the dark and bloody ground. The feudal wars of Kentucky have, in the past, found considerable publicity through newspapers. Unfortunately, many newspaper re- porters dealing with this subject were either deprived of an opportunity to make a thorough in- vestigation of the facts, or permitted their imagination to supply what they had failed to obtain. At any rate, the result was distortion of the truth and exaggeration. Exaggeration is not needed to make Kentucky's feudal wars of thrilling, intensely gripping interest to every reader.

New York: R.F. Fenno & company, 1917. 344p.

By L. F. Johnson.

A collection of important and interesting tragedies and criminal trials which have taken place in Kentucky. Tragic events in the history of our own State ought to serve a good purpose. Every event detailed in this work is given as a matter of history. Some allowance may be made for the ordinary exaggeration of the newspaper reporter who may have colored his story for the purpose of adding zest to it, but practically all the dates and a large part of the evidence have been taken from court records and the re- ports of the Court of Appeals. A few ' ' skeletons ' ' in the closets of prominent Kentuckians are exhibited to the present generation for the first time. These disclosures are not made for the purpose of humiliating any person ; they are given as historic facts in order that this and succeeding generations may upon the one hand emulate the acts of patriotism and upon the other be warned by the examples of sin and folly and tragic deaths of men, known as men of affairs. The tragedies and trials of prominent Kentuckians should be of interest to every citizen of the Commonwealth. The cases cited are confined to the families of Governors and other State officials, lawyers, judges and men of affairs, socially, politically and intellectually. Many of them are incidents which have occurred in our midst. Some of us have participated in them and have been a part of them and we know by observation, and some by actual experience, the motives, the impulses and the in- terests which have caused men to act. We know that a man in a normal condition often acts differently from what he does when in the extremity of death or when threatened by some great catastrophe.

Louisville, KY: The Baldwin Law Book Company, 1916. 356p.

By Edgar James.

A complete history of their lives and exploits concluding with the Hillsville Courthouse tragedy. When Patrick Henry, of Revolutionary days, arose in an impassioned speech and exclaimed with bated breath, “Give me liberty or give me death!” he perhaps voiced the sentiments of the Allen gang of mountains outlaws, although in a far more holy cause—but still the love of liberty prevailed su¬ preme to which curtailment of freedom, death was preferable. ' That same spirit of liberty has been carried down through the years to the Virginia mountaineer of today, and whether right or wrong in his life and its precepts, there is one thing he holds dearest and best among it all and that is freedom. Captured and imprisoned, like the mountain eagle, he soon languishes and dies, a victim of captivity. Reared in an atmosphere of freedom, raised in an altitude where the people live in the open air and ar.e imbued with the idea that no matter what a mountaineer may do, his freedom is still his own. The legality of the government collecting tax on whiskey, they are unable to comprehend, hence the “moonshine still,” which, while it has been largely diminished by the vigilance of the United States revenue officers, many of whom have lost their.

Baltimore: Phoenix Pub. Co., 1912. 191p.

By Inglis, Amirah.

This is a book about a murder. A book about prison, about the clash of cultures and about wild men. Karo was a wild man and a clever one and this book is an attempt to trace his life. It is the history of a Papuan man born in the early part of the twentieth century and follows the path that led him to the most horrible murders and finally to the gallows. An attempt also to understand why he had another, legendary life beyond the gallows. The author became interested in Karo Araua when she heard for the first time the 'Song about Karo', the poem in traditional form in which he was the hero. It was part of her interest in the colonial condition, which was stimulated when she read of the way the lives of those in gaol can throw a great deal of light on the lowly who are also illiterate. Particularly was this the case in colonial Papua where those who landed in gaol were likely to be a cross section of those villagers who came in contact with the white man's law, most of which they did not understand. Most writings about Papua New Guinea deal with the successful people who managed the colonial encounter. Karo, hanged in Port Moresby in 1938, was not successful, but his name lives on among his own people.

Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1982. 162p.

By George Purkess.

The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar. “An extraordinary book about the life of a proffessional burglar/murderer. The subject Peace was gifted in many ways, talented violinist, good with his hands in picture framing, carpentry, etc, but instead chose this life of crime. The book describes a grim picture of prison life at that time.”

London: Strand, W.C., 1879. 2740p.