The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd

"The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd is stunningly wrought. Anyone with the slightest interest in crime or its history, in the press and sensationalism, in the cultural history of modern economic and urban life, in London or eighteenth century England could not fail to be intrigued by the stories of two identical twin brothers—one good, happily married and respectable, the other not so good and living with a courtesan—who die hand-in-hand on the gallows. Are they the victims of their own corruption, or of the wiles of the wicked Mrs. Rudd? This book is micro-history at its best."—Thomas Laqueur, author of Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud

"Dee-li-cious!!! Immensely readable, this delectable true-crime story of eighteenth-century forgery, deceit, and ambition casts light on a wide range of socially significant sites, from the credit market to the world of fashion, from the law court to the imperial stage. The Perreaus and Mrs. Rudd is a tour de force of historical scholarship, and it's an engrossing story as well."—Mary Poovey, author of A History of the Modern Fact: Problems of Knowledge in the Sciences of Wealth and Society