Mature
Rookwood (Summarized Edition)
Enriched edition. A Gothic Historical Mystery of 18th-Century England—Dick Turpin, Family Inheritance, and a Highwayman's RevengeBy William Harrison Ainsworth
Length4h 8m
About this audiobook
Rookwood (1834) entwines a contested family inheritance with the meteoric legend of Dick Turpin, climaxing in the breathless Ride to York. Between crypts, inns, and the echoing chambers of Rookwood Hall, Ainsworth fuses Gothic architecture, fatal prophecy, and the kinetics of the road. Ornate, melodramatic prose is punctuated by ballads and tavern songs, producing a hybrid of historical romance and criminal chronicle that tests Romantic heroism against the hard line of eighteenth-century law. Manchester-born and trained for the law, William Harrison Ainsworth brought an antiquarian relish for relics, broadsides, and Newgate calendars to his fiction. Writing in Scott's wake yet turning to the plebeian roadway, and collaborating with George Cruikshank, he shaped a taste for spectacle and episodic design. Archival rumor and local topography fed a narrative that crystallized contemporary anxieties about celebrity crime and inheritance, igniting debate over the emergent Newgate novel. Readers of Gothic romance, historical fiction, and Victorian studies will find both propulsive narrative and cultural document here. For scholarship and pleasure alike, Rookwood rewards with haunted halls, balladry, and a bracing inquiry into how charisma unsettles law.
Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable—distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.
Audiobook details
GenreHistorical Fiction, General Fiction
Length4 hrs 8 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateJan 10, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
5Rookwood (pt. 1)
2Introduction
6Rookwood (pt. 2)
3Synopsis
7Analysis
4Historical Context
8Reflection
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