*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 s
