Claude Duval legend, including claims of alchemy, gambling, and much womanising. He is reported to haunt the Holt Hotel along the A4260 (Oxford Road) in Oxfordshire, a hotel where he spent many nights when it was a small coaching inn. Recent historians have reappraised the legacy of Duval. James Sharpe in "Dick Turpin" regarded Duval as the most significant figure in the shaping of the highwayman myth. John and Philip Sugden's "The Thief of Hearts" reconstructs what is known of the historical Duval, using much fresh evidence, and shows that the traditions about the Frenchman were used by such literary luminaries as
Edmund Hart Turpin Early in 1869, he undertook in addition to all this heavy church work, the duties of organist and choirmaster at St. George's, Bloomsbury. Once settled in London Turpin rapidly made friends, two of the earliest being Edward John Hopkins of the Temple Church, and John Pyke Hullah. Another friend for nearly forty years was Charles William Pearce (1856-1928), organist and later Hon. Treasurer of the Royal College of Organists; the latter wrote E.H. Turpin's biography in 1911. In London, E.H. Turpin studied under John Pyke Hullah as well as Ernst Pauer. It is known that E.H. Turpin also acted as