Books by Joel F. Harrington

Welcome to the world of Frantz Schmidt: citizen of Nuremberg, executioner of 394 unfortunates, and torturer of many hundreds more. Most unusually for his times, Frantz was also a diarist. This title takes us inside his world and his thinking. Could a man who routinely practiced such cruelty also be insightful, compassionate - even progressive?

The baby abandoned on the doorstep is a phenomenon that has virtually disappeared from our experience, but in the early modern world, unwanted children were a very real problem for parents, government officials, and society. This work recreates sixteenth-century Nuremberg to explore what befell abandoned, neglected, abused, or delinquent children.