Newgate: London's Prototype Of Hell

A gift for my son,he was delighted

I am very well read on this subject and brotish history in general. buy this book had a few facts in it that i hadnt known about before. Some things in the book are repeated though too much to pad it out. The book could have been shorter.

I liked this book. It's a very well told history of a most horrible place. Full of interesting characters and facts I really recommend it.

A must for all Londonologists

This was an interesting book, all about the history of Newgate Prison in London. Each chapter took a different aspect of it, i.e. punishment, sentencing, reform etc, and discussed that. It's similar in style to Catherine Arnold's "Bedlam", but not really quite as good. It had some really interesting stories in it, but it was written in quite a simplistic style and I found that some of the quotes were repeated quite a few times, which was a bit annoying. So overall it was an interesting read, recommended if you don't know anything about Newgate, but there are better books on the subject.

An excellent book, thrilling read from cover to cover, full of useful information that you would never associate with Newgate.

Got bored after a few pages

A previous reviewer compared the book unfavourably against  Bedlam: London and Its Mad  but I prefered this book to the other. Bedlam seemed dry in its writing style. This book might be a tad simplistic but it is informative. The anecdotes are interesting and the isolated page summaries of personalities were useful.Excellent book.

This is an excellent book. The author did a great job writing not only about the building itself but the people who were involved and how it shaped the world around it. The layout of the book is also well done which is hard to find for Kindle editions.

A good companion of "Greater London Murders".

The author explores just about every possible link between Newgate and a variety of topics (executions, various uses as a prison, Dickens' novels, etc.). There is, therefore, a great deal to enjoy about the book, which includes clear prose and organization. My only criticism is that I got tired of rereading the same lengthy quotes that would appear more than once in the book. In this sense, a little more thought to the organization of the book would have made this frequent repetitive element unnecessary.

Hard to believe that people can treat people in this manner, lots of facts.

I read the first quarter of the book closely because it detailed the horrendous early criminal justice system of Lonfon. So hard to believe that people can be so crude and cruel. The chapters that dealt with prison reform sound almost 21st century. Details about the.lives of notorious prisoners .. I did care about.