The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great

Jonathan Wild, born about 1682 and executed at Tyburn in 1725, was one of the most notorious criminals of his age. His resemblance to the hero in Fielding's satire of the same name is general rather than particular. The real Jonathan (whose legitimate business was that of a buckle-maker) like Fielding's, won his fame, not as a robber himself, but as an informer, and a receiver of stolen goods. His method was to restore these to the owners on receipt of a commission, which was generally pretty large, pretending that he had paid the whole of it to the thieves, whom for disinterested motives he had traced. He was a great organiser, and he controlled various bands of robbers whose lives he did not hesitate to sacrifice, when his own was in danger. Naturally he was so hated by many of his underlings that it is a wonder he was able to maintain his authority over them as many years as he did. His rascality had been notorious a long time before his crimes could actually be proved. He was executed at last according to the statute which made receivers of stolen goods equally guilty with the stealers. Beyond this general resemblance, the adventures of the real Jonathan, so far as we know them, are not much like those of the fictitious. True, the real Jonathan's married life was unhappy, though his quarrel with his wife did not follow so hard upon his wedding as the quarrel of Fielding's hero and the chaste Laetitia. Not until a year from his marriage did the real Jonathan separate from his spouse, after which time he lived, like Fielding's, not always mindful of his vows of faithfulness. Like Fielding's, too, he was called upon to suppress rebellions in his gangs, and once he came very near being killed in a court of justice by one Blake, alias Blueskin. Apart from these misadventures, the experiences of Fielding's Wild seem to be purely imaginary. "My narrative is rather of such actions which he might have performed," the author himself says, [Footnote: Introduction to Miscellanies, 1st ed., p. xvii.] "or would, or should have performed, than what he really did. The Life and Actions of the Late Jonathan Wild, got out with characteristic commercial energy by Defoe, soon after the criminal's execution, is very different from Fielding's satirical narrative, and probably a good deal nearer the truth

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