Charlie Peace at the Nottingham Playhouse

    

Opening Night early October 2013!

If you happen to be in Nottingham in October keep your eyes open for the melodrama Charlie Peace – His Amazing Life and Astounding Legend (HERE). Michael Eaton is the dramatist, celebrated graphic artist Eddie Campbell (‘From Hell’) worked on the set designs by Barney George, and the director is Giles Croft. If this property ever gets optioned as a film might I suggest hiring Daniel Day-Lewis for the title role?

Gallows Literature

“Gallows Literature,” common in England and the United States from about 1730 to the eighteen-eighties, consisted of biographies, “last speeches,” and “dying verses”. They could be found in any country with a printing press, Spain, France, Germany or Russia. When a celebrated burglar or murderer was scheduled to be publicly “turned off,” enterprising street publishers issued “whole-sheet” broadsides, in one or two columns of wretched, aging type, with a woodcut at top, to be sold in shops and hawked at the foot of the gallows.

In Regency England, the two major publishers were Jemmy Catnatch and “Old Mother Pitts,” derided by her rival as “a former bumboat woman.” James Catnatch’s business was founded in 1813, and, in the hands of his successor, lasted until 1883 when the famous Seven Dials establishment was torn down. Its tempting to speculate on what happened to Catnatch's type and woodcut stock, containing “many designed and cut by Thomas Bewick.”

This late example, a Charles Peace broadside, from the collection of Stewart Evans, was published by George Slater, Snighill, sometime before Peace was executed on 25 February 1879. The last public hanging in England was in 1868 so instead of sales under the gallows broadsides seem to have been sold at newsagents. The only reference to a British publisher named Slater I found was from 1849, One George Slater was publisher of Slater's Shilling Series from 252, Strand.

The bill-sticker cartoon from Punch, below, was published when Jack the Ripper was still active. It seems a little unfair to the bill-stickers, who were probably not paid much by the publishers.

Charles Peace XI

Charles Peace Update :

Thanks to my good friend Nick McBride, in the UK, I can add another publication to the many featuring stories of that marvellous malefactor Charles Peace.

The New ALDINE HALF-HOLIDAY Library, complete stories of adventure

“Has 355,000 Readers Weekly,” Aldine Publishing Company Ltd. 1, 2 & 3 Crown Court, Chancery Lane, London, W.C. One Penny. By post: 3s 4d for six months. 6s 8d for twelve.

THE MASTER CRIMINAL

Being the Life History of Charles Peace

by Tristram K. Monck

Author of “Peril of the Ocean,” “At Bay with the World,” “Under the Black

Flag,” “Britain at Bay,” “In the Wake of the Armada,” etc, etc

766: 1 - Foreword and Peace’s First Burglary (pps 13-18) May 23 1907

767: 2 - The Bradford Burglar (pps 12-19) May 30 1907 etc

769: 3 - The Sheffield Burglar (pps 12-18)

770: 4 - The Diamond Necklace (pps 12-18)

772: 5 - Charles Peace’s Revenge (pps 1-8)

773: 6 - Birds of a Feather (pps 1-10)

774: 7 - At Bay (pps 1-10+?? missing pages 11 onwards)

776: 8 - A Winning Hand (pps 1-13)

777: 9 - A Race for Freedom (pps 1-7)

778: 10 - Gripped by Flame (pps 1-8)

780: 11 - The Sliding Door (pps 1-7)

782: 12 (missing this the final part)

No Peace in 768, 771, 775, 779, 781.

Volume I No,1 of the Aldine Half-Holiday Library was published on September 12, 1893 and ran to No. 904, January 13, 1910. It promised a “24 page complete adventure every week.” Two known contributors were Charles Edward Pearce and Ogilvie Mitchell. The editor may have been Walter Herrod Light who edited a companion paper True Blue Library begun January 15, 1898. True Blue shared the same authors.

I was surprised to find a fictional reworking of a true-life criminal in Aldine Half-Holiday Library. The usual adventures in this publication came from the American dime novels. Stanford’s dime-novel site has images for two such titles, Lion-Hearted Dick and The Submarine Detectives. However, a photo from a bound volume on Ebay showed a serial of Jack Sheppard (no illustrations) so the Half-Holiday must have been a mix of British authors and American reprints.

The Aldine Printing and Publishing Company, last of the penny dreadful publishers was founded by Charles Perry Brown (1834-1916) and ran from 1886 until the early 1930’s. they specialized in reprints of dime novels featuring Buffalo Bill, Deadwood Dick and Frank Reade Jr. Brown’s introduction into the penny dreadful field was as editor of the Boy’s Journal (Jan. 1863-February 1871) published by Henry Vickers. According to the Waterloo Directory this story paper came with separate plates on toned paper from artist Huard Prowse who must have been a relation of Robert Prowse the elder.

Nick says of the cover pictured above : “Although I can’t confirm this, the illustrator may well be a Rex Osborn, as in one issue, the editor offers a prize for someone who can display a poster of Charles Peace on a prominent building ‘for no less than three days.’ This poster is by Rex Osborn.”

To this I can add that the masthead is initialled R. P. ‘06, no doubt that this was by Robert Prowse Jr., a frequent cover illustrator for the digest-sized Robin Hood, Black Bess, Jack Sheppard, Claud Duval, Blackbeard the Pirate and Spring-Heeled Jack Libraries published by Aldine in the 1900’s. Thanks Nick, your time and effort is greatly appreciated.

Charles Peace X

Your handy guide to the illustrated Life of Charles Peace >

Charles Peace I

Charles Peace II

Charles Peace III

Charles Peace IV

Charles Peace V

Charles Peace VI

Charles Peace VII

Charles Peace VIII

Charles Peace IX

Charles Peace IX

Portraits from the Illustrated Police News February 15, 1879. Charles Peace's Dream from March 8, 1879.

Charles Peace VIII

Charles Peace; or, the Adventures of a Notorious Burglar, by a Popular Author, 1879 Continued....

Charles Peace VII

Charles Peace; or, the Adventures of a Notorious Burglar, by a Popular Author, 1879 Continued....

Charles Peace VI

As soon as Charles Peace was arrested for the Bannercross murder, George Purkess Jr., proprietor of the Illustrated Police News, published a sixteen page pamphlet titled The Life and Examination of Charles Peace Charged with The Bannercross Murder Containing his Correct Portrait, with Eight other Illustrations. Cost was one penny. On February 8, 1879. A portrait of Charles Peace being executed was announced just before his date with the Hangman. On March 1, 1879 Charles Peace; or, the Adventures of a Notorious Burglar, by a Popular Author began publishing, ending two years later with 100 penny weekly numbers. No. 1 was presented gratis with No. 2 in a beautifully coloured wrapper. In December 1900 this publication could still be ordered from newsstands, or from the Illustrated Police News offices on Wych-street, in a bound volume or individual penny numbers.

Charles Peace V

Charles Peace Authentic Account of the Life, Trial and Execution of the Notorious Burglar was first published in 1912 by Daisy Bank Publishing. This facsimile was reprinted by the Charles Peace Society for its members in 2007.

Charles Peace IV

Old criminal lags never grow old and die. Charles Peace was one of the old British comic book heroes (along with Robot Archie, Captain Hurricane, the Steel Claw &c.) resurrected in this 2005 six-part comic series from Wildstorm. Many of the vintage strips, although not, alas, Charley Peace, were re-published in Albion Origins.