London is a city of myth and heroism, and criminality features strongly in the city's folklore. In literature, the London criminal has transcended mere villainy to become canonised as one of our favourite literary character types.

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London is a city of myth and heroism, and criminality features strongly in the city's folklore. In literature, the London criminal has transcended mere villainy to become canonised as one of our favourite literary character types. Dickens' Oliver Twist portrays London's dense criminal underworld that thrived during the mid-19th century. In characters such as Fagin and Bill Sikes the reader is presented professional thieves and house breakers whom converse in their own esoteric slang and prowl the darkest, dingiest districts of the East End. Staying true to the nature of London's criminal mythology, which has idealised many thieves and murderers, Dickens' dramatisation of the close-knit subculture of larceny champions such unsavoury characters as urban heroes, reacting against the severe poverty of their environment. Yet, as will become clear, he struggles with an ideological dichotomy in his representation of criminality. Though in his fiction Dickens seems to sympathise with the poverty and desperation of London criminals, he allows for his own venomous moral scrutiny of their actions, which manifests further in his journalistic writings. This also translates to the reader as a moral dilemma; can we admire Bill Sikes' bravery and skill, and simultaneously condemn him for his brutal treatment of the orphan Oliver?

An equally prescient feature of London's mythology is the criminal's nemesis, the law enforcers. But instead of being revered as heroic, the police officer is often portrayed as villainous, especially by Dickens. This is a strange paradox wherein the law-enforcer, protector of London's citizens, exchanges roles with the criminal, and takes on attributes one would associate with the criminal. The law enforcer will either be portrayed as a harsh tyrant, or to more comedic effect, as boorish, over-zealous and ostentatious. In Oliver Twist, Dickens projects these characteristics onto Mr. Fang the magistrate, and the two Bow St. officers, Blathers and Duff, respectively. The Bow St. officers were a kind of detective unit, yet the two depicted by Dickens show no sign of the quick wit and inquisitiveness displayed by Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. Holmes is the prototypical detective; champion of the rational arts, a combination of scholarly, bohemian 90's philosopher, and a dynamic Greek hero. He commands respect from everyone; from the characters who populate his fictional Baker St. (including many of the criminals he captures), his author, and his readers. He epitomises the ideal British police officer, and his exploits can be seen to this day on the walls of Baker St. tube station. He transcends the written word, and where Dickens approaches the law enforcers of his London with antipathy, Doyle instills within Holmes an admirable moral fibre, exalting him into the annals of London's most virtuous heroes.
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It is the punishment awaiting the thieves and vagrants of 19th Century London that separates grim reality from the folk tale. Public hangings and harsh prisons (most famously Newgate) provoked fear in the hearts of criminals and contempt in the more humanist writers of the time, especially Dickens. Prison and execution is not entirely divorced from mythology though, a plethora of the city's folk heroes and villains arose from the jails and gallows of London. Jack Ketch a fierce public hangman, became the adopted name for all executioners in London, acting as a kind of 19th century Bogeyman, ...

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