Richard "Dick" Turpin (bap. 1705 – 7 April 1739) was an English highwayman whose exploits were romanticised following his execution in York in 1739. In the early 1730s, he joined a gang becoming a poacher, burglar, horse thief and highwayman. On 22 March 1739, Turpin was found guilty on two charges of horse theft and sentenced to death; he was executed on 7 April 1739. Turpin became the subject of legend after his execution, and romanticised as dashing and heroic in English ballads and popular theatre of the 18th and 19th centuries. The Victorian penny dreadful was a cheap sensationalist fiction, with lurid images. Costing a penny, it was a forerunner in some ways to the modern day graphic novel or comic.