This is an interesting and well researched book. Adam Worth is a fascinating character and Macintye paints a vivid portrait using extensive source material. Worth is a thrill seeking crook par excellence and pulls himself up to pretty dizzying heights using only his wits. I suppose it is a form of the American dream only realised via illicit means. He goes from a penniless street urchin to a feted member of Victorian London society with a mansion, an apartment on Piccadily, a yacht, a shooting lodge and a house on the front at Brighton entertaining in style and living a life of lavish luxury. Perhaps it is the material trappings that make criminal activities that would otherwise be frowned upon more acceptable when their practitioner is wildly successful. I think there is an element of this but other endearing features of Worth’s character, as portrayed in this book, included his generosity and loyalty to his friends and coconspiritors, his meticulous planning and quick wits, his considerable abilities in avoiding detection and his tee-totalling and abhorrence of violence.
However, Worth can hardly be described as a moderate character and, given the heights he attained in his action packed life, no sensible person should expect him to be so. He seems to have been a serious social climber, an affected and blase spendthrift and, perhaps most all, an inveterate thrill seeker. Some of these things clearly go hand in hand; a man with more modest spending habits could have retired several times over on the takings from his criminal career. Nonetheless, he also seems to have stolen, schemed and involved himself in the world of crime out of a sheer love of the game rather than simply to sustain his exorbitant spending habits. Eventually, this love of thrills lands him in jail in Belgium; an incident that essentially ruined his life. In his old age he lives to regret his profligacy and turns to alcohol in the manner he had eschewed for most of his career. All told, it is a deeply sad story and goes to show how even the most artful criminal mastermind can never really escape the perils of his profession; both material and psychological.
The theft of The Duchess of Devonshire, a Gainsborough picture sold for the highest price ever recorded before its theft, makes for a good centerpiece around which the author can build this highly eclectic and swashbuckling life. Of course, he may have romanticised and dramatised it in places but I was impressed and in agreement with his representation of the picture as a metaphor for Worth’s own life. Worth clearly wanted to live in style and be acceptable in the eyes of Victorian society. But he was also a thief and rapscallion of the first order. As such, while he possessed the envy of the entire art world, the object of desire for much of British high society, he could never display it or even confess to owning it! The fact that he kept it shows some romantic or symbolic attachment to it as it was clearly a risk to be carrying such an item while also committing other crimes.
You can’t help but like Worth’s dedication to his criminal partners. Breaking them out of prison, lending them money and paying expensive lawyers fees and bribes. In the end, this was never repaid and his partners, and even family, cheated, extorted and abandoned him to the last. His lavish lifestyle, daring and cheek in dealing with the authorities are all highly entertaining as well. But the story has a sad ending and I could only end up feeling pity for this bright, capable risk seeker who, in this depiction, does indeed seem to be a cut above the other characters in the rogues gallery he consorted with.
The book contains several other fascinating characters; most of all William Pinkerton, who ran a detective agency far superior to all the police services in the world. His story strikes me as at least as interesting as Worth’s. For reasons largely unexplained, he takes a liking to Worth and assists him considerably by not providing the Belgian authorities with the evidence he has accumulated about him when he is locked up and on trail. The two, extraordinarily, go on to become firm friends! Pinkerton helps Worth to negotiate the return of the famous portrait he has stolen decades ago when he down and out following his release from jail. They write to each other and Pinkerton goes on to assist his children and employ his son in the detective agency. To me, this gave some evidence that he was a form of ‘honest crook’, if such a thing can exist, although a sceptic might argue it is more likely evidence that him and Pinkerton were involved in mutually beneficial shady dealings in the past!
The book is pretty well written, sometimes a little arrogant in its tone, sometimes a little journalistic, sometimes a little obviously seeking to overplay tenuous connections. I can’t argue with the author’s command of the sources, which is impressive and interesting in equal measure. In fairness, making the links to Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes character Moriarty is an obvious way of increasing sales and does seem to have some merit. Not least because of Pinkerton’s publication of life of Adam Worth and subsequent anger that Conan Doyle had stolen so much of his material. For me though, the main attraction was Worth’s life and not the connections it may have had to more famous men like Conan Doyle and JP Morgan. Overall, an engaging middleweight read!
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