A Rake's Progress is a series of eight paintings by 18th-century English artist William Hogarth. The series shows the decline and fall of Tom Rakewell, the spendthrift son and heir of a rich merchant, who comes to London, wastes all his money on luxurious living, prostitution and gambling, and as a consequence is imprisoned in the Fleet Prison and ultimately Bethlem Hospital, or Bedlam. The filmmaker Alan Parker has described the works as an ancestor to the storyboard.