Dekker, Thomas | A veritable cesspool of crime and criminals

Dekker, Thomas

English Villanies: Seven Severall Times Prest to Death by the Printers…At the End a Canting Dictionary, to teach their Language, with Canting Songs … London: Printed by M. Parsons and to be sold by James Becket, [1638]

4to (178 x 127 mm). Woodcut of a bellman on title-page verso, title printed in roman type, text in black letter, woodcut initials and tailpiece, printer's ornaments on preliminaries; title-page imperfect with losses to text and woodcut, lower right corners of A2–3 repaired, hole on C1 costing 2 or 3 words, sides notes on C4v–D1r and a few headlines shaved, lacks O1, bottom margins of N3–4 and O2–4 repaired,  some dampstaining chiefly in latter half of text. Half tan cloth over patterned paper boards by Maltby of Oxford, free endpapers browned.

Second edition of this popular work. The villainies or rogueries are the great run of London and country cheats, abuses and hazards: harlotry, gamblers' slights, tricks of horse-handlers, beggers, gaolers, muggers, etc.

Dekker was one of the first to give a description of gypsies: "They are a people more scattered than Jews: beggerly in apparell, barbarous in condition, beastly in behaviour ... By a by name they are called Gipsies, they call themselves Egyptians, others in mockery call them Moone-men." Another interesting feature of the book is the "The Canter's Dictionary"—a veritable dictionary of slang, as used by the Tudor Underworld. For good measure, some canting songs are added, and for the convenience of the reader, they are followed by translations into English. 

REFERENCE:

ESTC: S109529; Grolier, Wither to Prior, 252 (earlier edition); STC 6492