(Whitney, James) | Record of a rogue's larcenous exploits

(Whitney, James)

The Life of Captain James Whitney. Containing His Most Remarkable Robberies and Other Adventures … To His Execution … the First of February 1692/3. London: Printed for A. R., 1693]

4to (210 x 159 mm). Nineteenth-century Dutch combed marbled boards, maroon roan spine lettered gilt; joints rubbed, board edges slightly bumped.

First edition of a scarce rogue pamphlet. Five copies total have been located by ESTC, Wing, and Worldcat. RBH records only one copy offered twice by Quaritch in 1982. The work contains anecdotes about Whitney as a highwayman, Whitney as a prankster colored with a bawdy streak and bits of cant, and Whitney as an unexpected but dubious benefactor—in one episode he restores a bride's £40 dowry, provided he enjoyed "the happiness of this one Nights Lodging with the Bride." In another, told partly in dialect, shows Whitney persuaded not to rob a rather cunning Irishman.