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
Claude Duval (opera) attractive than that of "Patience" at the Opera Comique [but] … unlike the Gilbert and Sullivan work, there is a dull, sober earnestness about this opera. Celli was "as good a Duval as could well be imagined … vociferously encored"; Power and Hood as the lovers were generally well-received, though both were thought by some to be slightly lacking in personality. Claude Duval (opera) Claude Duval – or Love and Larceny is a comic opera with music by Edward Solomon to a libretto by Henry Pottinger Stephens. The plot is loosely based on supposed events in the life of the