Boston ? Stories of criminals, ghosts, shipwrecks and pirates swirled through the busy streets of 18th-century London. Competing writers spun outlandish stories, and selling the tales was part of the street commerce, like hawking a criminal’s last confession before execution.

A new exhibit at the Boston Public Library gives a glimpse of that lively world, where the modern novel had its roots.

“Crooks, Rogues & Maids Less Than Virtuous: Books in the Streets of 18th-Century London,” features documents from the BPL’s collection and was organized by the library, the Boston Public Library Foundation and the University of Massachusetts-Boston. It runs through May 1.

The exhibit, in the BPL’s Cheverus Gallery, has four parts, “The Explosion of Literacy & Print,” “The Thrill of News From London, Atlantis & the Moon,” “The Allure of Crooks, Pirates & Highwaymen” and “Daniel Defoe & the Invention of the Novel.”

In London in that time, taverns and coffeehouses served as meeting spots for debate and political discussion.

“The newspaper or even books themselves would be delivered directly to the coffeehouse, just like Starbucks today. People would come in, sit down,” said Cheryl Nixon, assistant professor and associate chairwoman of English at UMass-Boston, who collaborated on the exhibit.

The novel grew as a literary form in that atmosphere.

Early copies of Daniel Defoe’s “Robinson Crusoe,” the tale of a castaway stranded on an island often considered the first novel, are on display. One is believed to be the first one printed, made in London in 1719.

Also shown is a woodblock depicting a scene from the beloved adventure story.

“I read Robinson Crusoe when I was a kid in grade school and I still remember sitting up in my bed worrying about whether the savages, as they were called, were going to chop his head off. And I felt very sorry for him and I was very moved,” said Earle Havens, acting keeper of rare books and manuscripts at the BPL.

Other pieces help re-create the era. A print from William Hogarth’s series, “The Harlot’s Progress,” shows a down-at-the-heels woman, sitting on a canopy bed, with the top of her dress unbuttoned. A magistrate enters her dumpy apartment to the right, likely because of her habit of picking pockets and selling her body to make ends meet.

Havens worked with Nixon and a team of UMass-Boston graduate students to create the exhibit, done as a final project for a hands-on class held in the Rare Books Room.

Havens said he hopes the exhibit inspires people to discover the library’s vast resources.

“We don’t turn anybody away and we invite people to come and ask to see what they would like to see, whether it’s Babylonian tablets from the period of the Old Testament to Jack Benny’s letters, which we have,” Havens said.

Visitor Bruce Blakely, of Austin, Texas, was passing through the exhibit on the day he turned 46.

“It’s very interesting. I didn’t realize there was quite so much trashy literature – so to speak – in the 1700s,” Blakely said.

Anthony Harley, 20, a student at Massachusetts College of Art, appreciated the show’s historical value.

“It’s very informative,” he said. “It’s really very good history, you know. I’ve never really been to this exhibit before in this library because I’ve never been to this part of the library. I love to read. I read a lot of Edgar Allan Poe, he’s my favorite, and Agatha Christie.”

Harley said if he could read the books in the exhibit, too, he would. “I mean I’m for it because the books look pretty cool.”