Tales from the German Underworld: Crime and Punishment in the Nineteenth Century

Through the means of four powerful and extraordinary narratives about a forgerer, a drunken female vagrant, a con man, and a prostitute in nineteenth-century Germany, this book explores intriguing questions about crime and justice in that era. The stories shed light on reactions to German penal policy during a period when the physical punishment of wrongdoers gave way to the concept of incarceration.