Yesterday's Chip Paper

This week Jim unravels the true story of the criminal who inspired Charles Dickens’ Fagin. Ikey Solomon was a notorious criminal of the early 19th century, a pickpocket turned international star thanks to his incredible plots to plunder his fellow men of their goods. His unbelievable story leads us across London, New York, Rio, Sydney and Tasmania. Also this week, Violet finds a disturbing trend in a bunch of old letters to the editor written by a class of fifth and sixth graders, and a poem by a jilted lover on the benefits of an asbestos heart. Yesterday’s Chip Paper is a fortnightly(ish) history podcast by two trans-Atlantic researchers that looks at stories found in historic newspaper archives. Whether that be true crime, bizarre poetry or complete mis-reportings of famous events, every two weeks or so Jim and Violet get together thanks to the wonderful workings of the internet to talk about their findings. Newspaper archives used in this episode: Newspapers.com www.newspapers.com/ British Newspaper Archi