[Letter from Retif de Vincennes, to his wife, Régine, 16 July 1736] A footman brought me a note from Bedwalters. It was short and sounded dispirited. He’d found plenty of evidence of the killer’s petty theft, of his taste in fine clothes; he’d found someone who’d lost money to him at cards and wa...
What can be said of present day society, when so many stand callously by? [Rev. A. E., Letter to Newcastle Courant, 27 November 1731] The spirit had told me the truth. Hugh was leaning against the wall of the breeches shop and scowling, looking like the sort of fellow you’...
[A Gentleman’s Companion, October 1735] I knew Hugh would not enjoy being woken – the snores I heard from behind the door of his attic room were too loud and energetic. It took three bouts of banging on the door to wake him, by which time the widow from the floor below was calling up the stairs i...
At all costs bring a good wine with you when you come; here there is only beer, which is tolerable, and gin, which is not. [Letter from Louis de Glabre to his friend Philippe Froidevaux, 18 January 1737] I passed the bridge on my way up to the George where I was to meet Hugh and Balfour. There wa...
[Instructions to a Son newly come of Age, Revd. Peter Morgan (London: published for the Author, 1691)] Nobody is more suspicious than a man hovering on a doorstep at three in the morning, shivering in the unexpected chill of a cloudless June night. Behind me, I could hear the murmur of Mazzanti’s...