Physical description

312 p. : brown cover, leather trim on spine, marbled page edges. The name 'LYTTON' embossed in centre of fromt cover.
'Paul Clifford' p. 1-289 ; 'Tomlinsoniana' p. 291-312.

Publication type

fiction

Summary

By day Paul Clifford is a young man about town, by night a highwayman. After numerous adventures, discovering his family origins, and narrowly escaping the hangman's noose, Paul eventually escapes to America with his beloved, Lucy. "The novel serves as a loud cry for social reform . . . appeal to society to amend the circumstances that breed crime".
'Tomlinsoniana' is a satirical appendix to the novel. The novel's character Augustus Tomlinson, who throughout the novel uses ethical and political arguments to justify highway robbery and pickpocketing, has become a Professor of Moral Philosophy at a (unnamed, fictional) German university. This section of the book is supposedly a collection of his writings on 'The popular art of cheating' and other moral issues.