For over 800 years, Newgate was the grimy axle around which British society slowly twisted. This was where such legendary outlaws as Robin Hood and Captain Kidd met their fates, where playwrights Ben Johnson and Christopher Marlowe sharpened their quills, and where flamboyant highwaymen made women swoon. While London's theatres came and went, the gaol remained, London's unofficial stage. From the Peasants' Revolt to the Great Fire, it was from Newgate that England's greatest dramas unfolded. By piecing together the lives of forgotten figures, as well as re-examining the prison's links with more famous individuals like Charles Dickens, this thrilling history goes in search of a ghostly place, erased by time, which inspired more art than any other structure in British history.