JAMES AND JOHN

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week Carefully observed rich in detail imaginative compassionate and angry A raw unexpected portrait of Britain s grandeur wealth energy cruelty and hypocrisy in the age of liberalism RORY STEWART A shocking story of prejudice and injustice told in meticulous detail KEIR STARMER From award winning historian and Sunday Times bestselling author Chris Bryant MP James and John tells the story of what it meant to be gay in early 19th century Britain through the lens of a landmark trial They had nothing to expect from the mercy of the crown their doom was sealed no plea could be urged in extenuation of their crime and they well knew that for them there was no hope in this world When Charles Dickens wrote these tragic lines he was penning fact not fiction He had visited the condemned cells at the infamous prison at Newgate where seventeen men who had been sentenced to death were awaiting news of their pleas for mercy Two men stood out James Pratt and John Smith who had been convicted of homosexuality Theirs was an unnatural offence a crime so unmentionable it was never named That was why they alone despaired and as the turnkey told Dickens why they alone were dead men The 1830s ushered in great change in Britain