A life of crime

Posted by Joe April 20, 2009 at 15:58In reply to A life of crime posted by Stan Glickman on April 20, 2009 at 08:50:

What is the origin of the phrase "a life of crime" and what is the particular work in which it is first used?

Defoe's final novel Roxana: The Fortunate Mistress has the phrase.
Novels and Miscellaneous Works: With Prefaces and Notes, Including Those ...ý - Page 138
by Daniel Defoe - 1724

... and, which was above all, I had now an opportunity to have quitted a life of
crime and debauchery, which I had been given up to for several years, ...