Christian August Vulpius, Rinaldo Rinaldini) i Fictional representations of gangs ranging from the late eighteenth-century Räuberroman or novel of banditry to the Mafia novels of Mario Puzo have exerted an enduring grip on the popular imagination. They do so in part by their treatment of the theme of honour: an apparently superfluous principle in modern societies that retains its sway only in countercultural groups or in cultures deemed to be anti-modern (Berger, 1970). In this essay I will attempt to account for the prominence of the honour theme in the German novel of banditry by relating it to changes in the economy of prestige around 1800 as experienced by authors and readers. ii In doing so I want to use the honour theme to address a larger