In this well-researched study, Erin Mackie makes a strong case for the inclusion of alternative, criminal masculinities in understanding the development of the modern English gentleman and patriarchy in the eighteenth century. Situated at the nexus of gender theory and literary studies, her book adds to the study of modern and late modern cultural norms of gender and sexuality through discourse analysis of literary and nonliterary texts. The emergence of “hegemonic masculinity” in the eighteenth century operates in a more complex space of engagement with other “interstitial” forms of manhood. Mackie's central argument “attends to the cultural and discursive means of the cultural negotiation between the licit and illicit, the gentleman and his outlaw brothers” (5). Although her argument is a bit thin in places—specifically, her fourth chapter—she offers careful readings of “masculine prestige and criminality,” in the form of the rake, the highwayman, and the pirate in the eighteenth century and into the late modern period (4). Overall, her examination of these three figures across multiple genres is smart and engaging, and she leaves much room for further “integrated” examinations of these figures.

Organized around the images of “deviant” masculinity that were so popular over the eighteenth century, Mackie covers a breadth of material spanning Joseph Addison and Richard Steele to Frances Burney and William Godwin. In her first chapter, she handily synthesizes a wealth of secondary scholarship discussing the formation of sexuality, subjectivity, and gender difference in the eighteenth century. The internalized heteronormative gentleman of patriarchy forms in conjunction with and in reaction to the “nostalgic allure and the prestige of the rake, the highwayman, and the pirate” (11). She compares Daniel Defoe's The Compleat English Gentleman with his fictional Colonel Jack in order to explore the shift from the inheritability of status and “manners” in the form of the aristocratic notion of “gentleman” to the modern notion of earned honor not tied to an elite status. However, she argues that this status is partially recovered in the “elite criminality” that she identifies as her three “culturally mythic figures” (23).

Perhaps one of her most interesting contributions to the discussion of masculinity occurs in her analysis of the rake in chapter 2. She astutely points out that the aspects of criminality embodied in the rake—that is, sexual and physical aggression as exemplified by John Gay's The Mohocks—have been almost completely ignored. She marks a change from the Restoration rake to the early eighteenth-century rake whose transgressions encompass more than merely an overactive (hetro)sexuality. The rake's reputation for libertinism masks a violent criminality that finds popular expression in the character of Lovelace in Samuel Richardson's Clarissa. In contrast to Lovelace's self-styled belief in his status as a gentleman, his behavior closely follows the script of the violent rake. Mackie argues that his character works in complex ways with status to produce, not a cautionary tale but an exemplar for “future rakes” caught in the “narcissistic fantasy” of their invincibility (70).

Equally compelling is her analysis of the figure of the highwayman in chapter 3 that compares criminal autobiography with John Gay's Macheath from the Beggar's Opera, James Boswell's London Journal, and William Harrison Ainsworth's Rookwood. The romanticized figure of the highwayman, particularly in the form of Dick Turpin from Rookwood, connects logically with the “nostalgic” figures of rake and pirate. The gallant and gentlemanly “manners” of this “mythic” character Mackie identifies specifically with three historical figures—James Hind, Phillip Stafford, and Claude Duval. She traces the stories of their gentleman-like exploits to the positive image of highwaymen that appears in later texts. In this case, criminality is not ignored but enters into the construction of masculinity as a “narrative of male independence and self-authorization” (113). This compelling narrative goes beyond the eighteenth century to recur in characters like Mark Twain's Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer.

While the significance of the pirate figure in literature has been clearly established, particularly in novels like Defoe's Captain Singleton, in chapter 4, Mackie makes an astute observation about a lack of pirate sexuality. If the rake's criminality has been ignored to privilege his sexual exploits, then the pirate is a figure of almost total violence. From this fresh perspective, she turns her attention to the Maroon and, later, Rastafarian communities of the West Indies. Her intery all these ideas of masculinity as they inform characters in Evelina and Caleb Williams. Her reading of Burney's novel is particularly rich and innovative. By focusing on the male characters in this “female novel of manners,” she ably demonstrates how Burney's critique addresses the “competing ideologies of gender, authority, and subjectivity” (149). Mackie ends with a convincing reading of Falkland in Caleb Williams. Given the intricacies of her argument, this book would have definitely benefited from a short conclusion or epilogue. Regardless, Rakes, Highwaymen, and Pirates successfully argues for the significance of criminal masculinities and their lasting implications for the patriarchy and gentlemanly ideal that emerged over the course of the eighteenth century.