The Beggar’s Opera

Peachum keeps his thieves in a ledger: one is worth more alive, another more dead. In his house, even a hanging is a matter of business.

John Gay’s 1728 ballad opera opens amid the accounts, schemes and songs of a criminal household, where Peachum weighs each rogue’s usefulness and his wife worries over their daughter, Polly. Polly has caught the eye—and, it seems, the heart—of Captain Macheath, a charming highwayman who keeps company with fine gentlemen. Her parents see marriage not as a happy ending but as a dangerous loss of influence over their daughter and their business. In a world where crime is discussed as a respectable trade and love may upset the books, can Polly choose her own future?

With centuries of literature, it's inevitable that some will fall through the cracks. We hunt down public domain works and restore them so they're not lost to the world.

Who are we? We're Cairn Press. Our background is in design, publishing, typography, and technology. These skills fuel our mission to create the highest quality Public Domain eBooks available online, at an affordable price. We give them the treatment they deserve; our proprietary process restores books for a better overall user experience in design, readability, and e-reader compatibility.