Old Bailey, England (Location Key)

In Absalom, Absalom! Quentin Compson assumes the first Sutpen to arrive in the new world traveled on a "ship from the Old Bailey" (180). The Old Bailey in London has been the site of the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales since the 16th century. A great many of North America's early colonists had been convicted of crimes in England, and were shipped out of the country as part of their sentence, but the idea that Sutpen's ancestors were transported criminals seems to be entirely Quentin's.