Claude Duval Samuel Butler ("A Pindarick Ode"), John Gay ("The Beggar's Opera") and William Harrison Ainsworth ("Rookwood" and "Talbot Harland") to create the iconic image of the gentleman highwayman still beloved today. Mackie, Erin. "Rakes, Highwaymen, and Pirates. The Making of the Modern Gentleman in the Eighteenth Century" Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 2009. Sharpe, James. "Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English highwayman". London: Profile, 2005. . Sugden, John. 'The Merry Dance of the Highwayman', "History Today", March 2017, vol. 67, no. 3, pp. 48–52. Sugden, John and Philip. "The Thief of Hearts: Claude Duval and the Gentleman Highwayman in Fact and Fiction".
Dick Turpin journey. This scene appealed more to readers than the rest of the work, and as Turpin was depicted as a likeable character who made the life of a criminal seem appealing, the story came to form part of the modern legend surrounding Turpin. The artist Edward Hull capitalised on Ainsworth's story, publishing six prints of notable events in Turpin's career. Ainsworth's tale of Turpin's overnight journey from London to York on his mare Black Bess has its origins in an episode recorded by Daniel Defoe, in his 1727 work "A tour thro' the whole island of Great Britain". After committing