『Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals』のカバーアート

Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals

Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals

著者： Dark Stories
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Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is a true crime podcast unlike any other; because every word of it was written nearly 300 years ago.


Each week, we read aloud one chapter from a remarkable book first published in London in 1735: a sprawling collection of murderers, highwaymen, coiners, housebreakers, pirates and worse, recorded in vivid and unsparing detail.


The crimes are real. The voices are authentic. And the world they reveal, brutal, strange, and surprisingly familiar, has been waiting three centuries to be heard again. True crime did not begin with podcasts. It began here by the burning light of a candle.

© 2026 Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals ノンフィクション犯罪
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  • Episode 018: James Shaw: Highwayman and Murderer of the Hampstead Road

    Episode 018: James Shaw: Highwayman and Murderer of the Hampstead Road
    2026/09/14
    Send us your FeedbackJames Shaw is a man who cannot settle. Born into a family with the means to set him on a respectable path, he drifts through one trade after another, never sticking, never satisfied; Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals captures him at the precise moment restlessness curdles into something far more dangerous. He blames a negligent wife, he blames circumstance, but beneath every excuse lies a temperament that finds honest labour unbearable. It is a story that belongs to the oldest tradition of true crime: the man who convinces himself that taking from others is no crime at all. The Hampstead Road stretches ahead of him in the dark, full of coaches and strangers and the particular kind of trouble that cannot be undone. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Unsettledness: today we might say 'restlessness' or 'instability,' but in the early eighteenth century this word carried a sharper edge. It suggested a constitutional defect, a soul that refused to be governed; not merely fidgeting, but a deep incapacity for the discipline that society demanded. Forger of gun-locks: nothing to do with forgery in the criminal sense. A forger here is a metalworker, someone who shapes iron at a forge. Shaw learns enough of this honest trade to occasionally earn money by it, though he prefers to earn it other ways entirely. Footpad: a highway robber who operates on foot rather than on horseback. The distinction mattered enormously in this era; the mounted highwayman could at least pretend to a certain glamour, while the footpad was seen as the lowest and most brutal kind of street predator. Goldfinches: Shaw uses this as slang for gold coins. When he tells his victims he 'fancied the goldfinches were not yet flown,' he means he suspects there is far more money hidden in the coach. It is a piece of criminal wit, delivered at swordpoint. Knights of the road: an ironic, almost affectionate term for highwaymen, borrowing the language of chivalry to describe armed robbery. The phrase was common in the period and captures the strange way popular culture romanticised men who were, by law, common felons. Committed: in legal usage, to be committed meant to be formally sent to prison by a magistrate to await trial. It did not imply conviction; it meant the wheels of justice had begun turning, and they rarely turned in the prisoner's favour. Tile kilns by Pancras: the brick and tile kilns that stood near the parish of St Pancras, then a semi-rural area on London's northern fringe. It was exactly the kind of lonely, industrial borderland where footpads thrived; close enough to the city for victims, remote enough for violence. Pinder of Wakefield: a well-known tavern near the Gray's Inn Road area. Named after a figure from Robin Hood legend, it served in this story as the place where a dying man was carried after being attacked; a grim irony, given its folkloric associations with outlawry. Fact: in eighteenth century legal language, 'fact' often meant 'deed' or 'criminal act.' When the text says 'for a fact of murder,' it means for the deed of murder; the word had a harder, more accusatory weight than it does today. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive.Support the show
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    5 分
  • Episode 017: John Smith: The Soldier Who Pulled the Trigger

    Episode 017: John Smith: The Soldier Who Pulled the Trigger
    2026/09/07
    Send us your FeedbackJohn Smith is a man shaped by war; bold, fierce, and trained to violence on the battlefields of Flanders, he returns to civilian life carrying a soldier's instincts into a world that has no place for them. Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals preserves his story as one of the most compact and unsettling true crime accounts of the early eighteenth century: a decorated veteran who squanders his pay and drifts toward theft and rage. There is something volatile inside him that the wars merely sharpened. Discharged from military and naval service alike, he arrives in London with empty pockets, a jealous temper, and a loaded pistol he is not afraid to use. What waits for a man like Smith, once the machinery of Georgian justice catches his scent, is a question the age answered without hesitation. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Trusses: not medical supports or roof beams as we might think today. In a military context, trusses were bundles of forage or provisions gathered for horses and troops. When the captain's party was 'obliged to leave their trusses behind them,' they were abandoning their supplies under enemy pressure; a small humiliation that sets up Smith's reckless act of bravery. Livery: today the word conjures up stables or taxi hire, but in the eighteenth century livery meant the distinctive uniform or clothing worn by a servant or soldier to mark who they belonged to. Smith's yellow livery becomes a kind of disguise; its colour just plausible enough to pass among French troops at a distance. Walloon: the French dialect spoken in the southern provinces of the Low Countries, what is now Belgium. Smith spoke it badly enough to sound like a native Frenchman, which is a wonderfully backhanded compliment; his incompetence in the language was, paradoxically, his camouflage. Clapping: nothing to do with applause. To clap something in this era meant to place it swiftly and forcefully. Smith 'clapped a gag in his mouth' and later 'clapped a pistol to her breast'; the word carries an almost percussive violence, a sudden sharp motion. Fray: a noisy disturbance or fight, from the old word 'affray.' Today we might say a brawl or a commotion. The word still echoes in legal language, where an affray remains a public order offence, but in Smith's London it was simply what happened when a man waved a pistol in a crowded room. Lewd women: Smith uses this phrase repeatedly and it does not merely mean sexually immoral. In the eighteenth century, lewd carried a broader sense of wicked, base, or disreputable. Smith blames these women for his downfall; whether they deserve the charge is another matter entirely. Sessions at the Old Bailey: the periodic sittings of London's central criminal court, held roughly eight times a year. Being convicted 'at the next sessions' meant the wheels of justice turned with startling speed; there was little delay between arrest and trial in Georgian England. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive.Support the show
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    4 分
  • Episode 016: John Jones: The Young Pickpocket of Holborn

    Episode 016: John Jones: The Young Pickpocket of Holborn
    2026/08/31
    Send us your FeedbackJohn Jones is barely a man when he stumbles into the trade that will define him. As Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals recounts, he is a boy raised with too much tenderness and too little discipline; a creature of idleness born in Holborn to parents who indulge every whim, hoping the flaws will simply fall away with age. They never do. Refused by every honest trade and cut off by his own family, Jones drifts into a London underworld where true crime begins not with malice but with boredom, poverty, and the wrong friend met at the wrong hour. The city he moves through is dense with bodies and opportunity, and the distance between a restless young man and a condemned one is terrifyingly short. Dark Lexicon: Old words. Dark meaning.The past speaks its own dialect; here is what to listen for in this episode. Malefactor: today this word survives mainly in legal documents and old novels, sounding almost quaint. In the eighteenth century it carried real weight; it simply meant a criminal, an evildoer, someone who had done wrong in the eyes of the law. When the text calls Jones a malefactor, it is not decorating him with drama; it is classifying him the way a court clerk would. Put him out upon liking: this phrase describes a trial arrangement where a young person was placed with a tradesman on a probationary basis before formal apprenticeship papers were signed. Think of it as a working interview that could last weeks. If the boy and the master suited each other, an apprenticeship followed; if not, the boy was sent home. Jones, of course, found fault with every one. Reluctancy: an older form of what we now call reluctance. It meant the same thing; an unwillingness or hesitation. The longer, slightly clumsier version was common in Georgian prose and has since been quietly trimmed by usage. Blind alehouse: not a pub for the visually impaired. A blind alehouse was a disreputable drinking den, often unlicensed, tucked away in a back lane or cellar where it could operate out of sight of authorities. The word 'blind' here means hidden or obscure; the kind of place where criminal business could be discussed without being overheard. Pocket: in this context, a pocket is not part of a garment but a separate pouch tied around the waist beneath the skirts. Women carried their valuables in these detachable bags, which is why pickpockets and cutpurses targeted them specifically. To 'whip off her pocket' meant to cut or snatch this pouch away from her body entirely. By-alley: a narrow side passage off a main street; what we might now call an alleyway or a back lane. In Georgian London these cramped passages were everywhere, providing escape routes for thieves and cover for all manner of dark transactions. Capital in its nature: this phrase means the crime carried the death penalty. In the eighteenth century, a staggering number of offences were capital; theft above a certain value, pickpocketing, housebreaking, even shoplifting could send a person to the gallows. The phrase sounds clinical, almost bureaucratic, but what it really says is: this will cost you your life. Sessions: the regular sittings of a criminal court, particularly the Old Bailey sessions held roughly every six weeks in London. Being 'condemned at the next sessions' meant the wheels of justice turned quickly; there was no long wait on death row in the modern sense. Your trial came around with the calendar, and so did your sentence. About This Series Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals is one of the earliest works of true crime writing in the English language, nearly 300 years old, covering murderers, thieves, highwaymen, forgers, coiners and worse. The book is entirely in the public domain and every word of it can be read today for free. But if you would rather listen, this podcast does exactly that: one criminal at a time, every week, read aloud. True crime was not invented by podcasts or streaming services. Eighteenth century readers were just as fascinated by outlaws and killers as we are today. They just consumed their dark stories by candlelight. The voice you hear is David Dark: crime researcher, theatre script writer, producer of live immersive experiences, and audiobook narrator and voice artist. This podcast uses an AI voice model trained on David's own voice, built using the maximum available training data to faithfully represent how he actually sounds. To hear David's real voice in human generated form, visit him on Audible, Online Stage, Voices of Today, Spoken Realms, and Internet Archive.Support the show
    続きを読む 一部表示
    5 分
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