The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief

The Victorian era's most infamous thief, Adam Worth was the original Napoleon of crime. Suave, cunning Worth learned early that the best way to succeed was to steal. And steal he did.

Following a strict code of honor, Worth won the respect of Victorian society. He also aroused its fear by becoming a chilling phantom, mingling undetected with the upper classes, whose valuables he brazenly stole. His most celebrated heist: Gainsborough's grand portrait of the Duchess of Devonshire--ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales--a painting Worth adored and often slept with for twenty years.

With a brilliant gang that included "Piano" Charley, a jewel thief, train robber, and playboy, and "the Scratch" Becker, master forger, Worth secretly ran operations from New York to London, Paris, and South Africa--until betrayal and a Pinkerton man finally brought him down.

In a decadent age, Worth was an icon. His biography is a grand, dazzling tour into the gaslit underworld of the last century. . . and into the doomed genius of a criminal mastermind.

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Arthur Conan Doyle fictionalized him as the superhuman Professor Moriarty, and the popular press luridly chronicled his daring heists, though the police never managed to convict him of anything major until he was nearly 50. Forgotten since his 19th-century heyday, master thief Adam Worth (1844-1902) gets a contemporary dusting-off in this cheerfully cynical biography by a British journalist, who sees Worth's story as a case study in Victorian hypocrisy. The colorful New York and London underworlds are as meticulously described as Worth's surprisingly attractive personality.

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All Customer Reviews
Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:

A Fascinating Subject Diminished Somewhat by Speculation and Padding., 2008-07-10
Adam Worth was perhaps the greatest criminal mind of the Victorian Era. William Pinkerton of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, hunter and eventually friend to Worth, called him "the most remarkable, most successful and most dangerous professional criminal known to modern times", and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used him as a model for Sherlock Holmes' arch-rival Professor Moriarty. "The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief" presents the life, crimes, and associates of this talented crook, who began life in poverty and fashioned himself into a wealthy English gentleman, stealing more than $4 million dollars in 30 years, personally and through vast networks of underlings who would never have guessed who pulled the strings.

Author Ben Macintyre makes use of Pinkerton's research and the memoirs of Worth's criminal contemporaries to flesh out his early life as the eldest child of poor German immigrants and a bounty jumper during the Civil War as a young man, before Worth was off to New York and a life of crime. A haul of nearly $1 million dollars with partner Charley Bullard from the 1869 robbery of Boylston Bank in Boston set him on his way to a distinguished criminal career. Worth adopted the alias Henry Judson Raymond, which he would use for the rest of his life, and found success at forgery, bank robbery, diamond heists, and, notably, art theft. In1876, Worth stole Gainsborough's painting of the notorious Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire from a London art gallery.

Macintyre places much emphasis on Worth's attachment to the painting of the Duchess. This is one of many clumsy attempts to analyze Worth's character, which annoyed me after a while. There is no doubt that Worth was uncommonly sober, disciplined, loyal, generous, and non-violent for a crook -or, for that matter, for anyone. At the same time, he stole on a grand scale. Macintyre finds more contradiction in this than Worth did and looks unconvincingly for explanations in his early life and in Victorian hypocrisy. There is too much speculation and commenting on people's morals for my taste. Numerous digressions which are tangential to the subject serve as padding. I would have preferred less of that and more detail about Worth's pyramid-style networks. Unfortunately, "The Napoleon of Crime" is more a padded popular biography than a scholarly social history, but it does succeed in making Adam Worth a fascinating figure.


2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Not for fans of Confessions of A Jewel Thief, 2005-09-30
I picked this book up because it is heavily promoted by Amazon with Confessions of a Jewel Thief, Bill Mason's larger than life book about being a burglar. These books have nearly nothing in common other than fitting into the true crime genre. Macintyre misses the mark by getting bogged down in details and random facts (his research is impressive, yes) and forgetting to spin a compelling tale. There is too much material here with no cohesive narrative. Many other readers have hit it in the head by identifying the failings of Mason to focus solely on the topic of Worth and his exploits.


3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

Terribly disappointing, 2005-08-04
If you meander through all these reviews, checking the lower-rated ones, you will get a fairly accurate view of this book. I have read hundreds of true crime books, and this ranks near the bottom. It is a fascinating topic. Or should be. But in the hands of this author, it is a tedious, irritating, blather. Let me explain.

Two of my favorite reads in the past few years make interesting comparisons. Big Trouble by J. Anthony Lukas was one of the most fascinating books I've ever read. Lukas wandered far and wide, reeling in everything and everyone, and in doing so, built a portrait of a time and place that was riveting. Every detail was useful, every speculation added value. Some of the reviewers found the rambles bothersome; I have rarely finished such a big book wishing it were even longer, but Big Trouble left me wanting more.

A similar book was Dark Horse by Kenneth Ackerman. Extraneous details were seamlessly woven into the tale, making the world come alive and the characters multi-dimensional. I could almost hear the creak of boots and smell the cigar smoke. Skilled writing and skilled choosing.

But this book ambles pointlessly, dragging in details that are neither of interest in themselves nor add to the tale being told. Long excursions into the lives of everyone who wanders into the main tale, endless condescending sermonizing about Victorian moralizing and double-standards, repetitive and irritating discursions into the "double" which the author seems to think the Victorians invented, and the most silly and irritating speculation sink this tale. Which is amazing, for the story of Adam Worth in the hands of the most plodding storyteller should be gripping. The man was a doer of great evil (which Macintyre blows off rather casually; Adam Worth left a wake of broken businesses, crushed dreams, falsely accused victims, and bankrupted people, but because he shot no one, and was "elegant" it seems OK.) He committed some astonishingly brave and brazen crimes. But there just isn't enough there that we can know, so invented details that grow wearying are heaped on.

At one point, Macintyre compares Worth to Captain Nemo. Now, this is a weak comparison on its own grounds, but then we get something about "no one knows if Worth read the book, but if he did, he would certainly see himself there." Now there's a pointless speculation. One of the common tactics of authors trying to puff up a lesser talent is to compare their achievements in some irrelevant way. "As Shakespeare did, So-and-so lived in Stratford," thereby gratuitously tying a grade z author and an acknowledged master. At gerat length the author "compares and contrasts" Worth and J.P. Morgan, in a stupendously overblown manner. Over and over we are told how Worth would have enjoyed this quip by Wilde. Give us a break, pal. The guy was a crook, a scuzz, a humbug, and a thug who hurt many, many people, much like Melmotte in Trollope's novel, The Way We Live Now (another book we don't know if Worth read.)


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Misleading Title, 2005-03-16
I agree with the reviewers saying this book missed its target. It seems like MacIntyre couldn't find sufficient material for a book about Adam Worth, but went ahead and wrote it anyway. My guess is that there's plenty of information about "The Duchess of Devonshire," and so MacIntyre used that to pad out his manuscript. Worth pulled off plenty of other capers, and I'd like to read about those. What I don't want to read is the author's unsubstantiated speculation about Worth's psyche.

If you're interested in the provenance of the "Duchess," this book might be an interesting read. Otherwise, I'd recommend Asbury's "Gangs of New York." Two of Worth's contemporaries and sometime associates also wrote books which might be worth tracking down. These were Sophie Lyons and William Pinkerton.


3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Elementary, Dear Adam, 2005-03-14
This book provides a fascinating portrait of one of the last of the gentleman criminals. In fact, Adam Worth wanted to be known solely as a gentleman rather than as a notorious criminal. The crimes were simply his way of gaining power and prestige in a Victorian world where he could never gain this position without buying it. And buy it he did by perpetrating almost every crime imaginable. An honorable thief who was fiercly loyal to his henchmen, Worth was devilishly clever, many times carrying out operations right out in the open without being caught. No wonder Doyle tapped him for Sherlock Holmes' arch-rival and Elliot immortalized him as Macavity, the Mystery Cat. Not bad for a guy who officially "died" in the Civil War at the 2nd Battle of Bull Run (reports of his death were greatly exaggerated--and he used his deceased status for financial gain, thus beginning his very lucrative criminal career).
Much of the book is taken up with his most famous crime, the stealing the "Duchess of Devonshire" by Gainsborough mere weeks after it was sold at the highest price ever paid for a painting up to that time. For a crime that was almost done on a whim, it is the one for which he is most well known and for which he was never caught (he returned the painting 25 years later anonymously).
Two very nice sub-themes run throughout the book. First was his undying love for his best friend's wife, Kitty Flynn. Flynn went on from humble beginnings (and after dropping he thieving hubby) to become a true Victorian lady of note, but Worth never dropped the torch he held for her (he was probably the father of two of her children).
The second was his friendship with William Pinkerton later in life. Born of mutual respect for each other throughout their careers as antagonists, Pinkerton not only did not volunteer evidence that could have condemned Worth to life in prison after he was caught and exposed, but also brokered the return of the Duchess while keeping Worth anonymous. Pinkerton mourned Worth when he died and kept a promise to watch out for his children by bringing his son into the detective agency, an ironic legacy for the Napoleon of Crime.
Fascinating stuff. Truly stranger than fiction.

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