Dick Turpin in York in 2009. Turpin is best known for his exploits as a highwayman, but before his execution the only contemporary report of him as such was in June 1737, when a broadsheet entitled "News news: great and wonderful news from London in an uproar or a hue and cry after the Great Turpin, with his escape into Ireland" was published. Although some of his contemporaries became the subject of chapbooks, names such as James Hind, Claude Duval and William Nevison, are not nearly as well-known today as the legend of Dick Turpin, whose fictionalised exploits first began to appear
Dick Turpin (TV series) was published by Armada books, London in 1979, and included 8 colour photos from the TV series (128 pages for 60p) a second novel by Richard Carpenter called "Turpin and Swiftnick" () with black and white illustrations by Peter Archer was published by Armada books in 1980 (125 pages for 70p). Three annuals containing photographs, text stories, comic strips and features based on the series were published, two by Grandreams (1979 and 1981) and one by Purnell (1980). "Look-in" magazine also ran a Dick Turpin comic strip drawn by Martin Asbury and written by Angus Allan in 1979 to tie-in