The pathetic history of George Barnwell, the London apprentice; : who, by keeping company, and following the advice of a woman of the town, named Milwood, was reduced to the lowest pitch of infamy; detailing every particular of his guilty career, from the robbing of his master to the dreadful murder of his uncle! With the history of Maria, his sweetheart.

Date:
[1822?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The pathetic history of George Barnwell, the London apprentice; : who, by keeping company, and following the advice of a woman of the town, named Milwood, was reduced to the lowest pitch of infamy; detailing every particular of his guilty career, from the robbing of his master to the dreadful murder of his uncle! With the history of Maria, his sweetheart. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    PREFACE. The tragic muse of Lillo, in 1759, made the Life of the unfortunate George Barnwell the subject of an affecting play, which was first acted at Drury-lane Theatre with great success. In the newspapers of the time, we find, that “ the Queen sent to the playhouse in Drury- lane for the manuscript of George Barnwell to peruse, which Mr. Wilks carried to Hampton Court.” It is written in prose, well adapted to the subject, and exalted enough to express the sentiments of the characters, which are all thrown into domestic life. The plot is inge¬ nious, and the subject of it affecting. No lesson can be more necessary to inculcate among that valuable body of youths who are trained to mercantile business, so essential in a commercial country, and who must neces¬ sarily have very large trusts confided to them, than this warning, how impossible it will be to avoid the snares of ruin, if they suffer them¬ selves to be drawn into the paths of the harlot, where they will be sure to meet with the most insatiable avarice on the one hand, and an un¬ guarded sensibility on the other, which will excite the practice of the most abandoned artifices, and plunge them headlong into vice, infamy, and ruin.