The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
Judith Flanders
Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment began and became ubiquitous – transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama and opera – even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts.
In this meticulously researched and compelling book, Judith Flanders – author of ‘The Victorian House’ – retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder – both famous and obscure. From the crimes (and myths) of Sweeny Todd and Jack the Ripper, to the tragedies of the murdered Marr family in London’s East End, Burke and Hare and their bodysnatching business in Edinburgh, to Greenacre who transported his dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus.
With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the dangerous to know, ‘The Invention of Murder’ is both a gripping tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Invention-Murder-Victorians-Revelled-Detection/dp/0007248881/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294983293&sr=1-1
If you are in the uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qftk
Other similar books to consider:
The Arsenic Century: How Victorian Britain was Poisoned at Home, Work, and Play
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arsenic-Century-Victorian-Britain-Poisoned/dp/0199574707/ref=pd_sim_b_2
Unsolved Murders in Victorian and Edwardian London
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Unsolved-Murders-Victorian-Edwardian-London/dp/1845630459/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1294983929&sr=1-4
I think the most appalling part of the Murder Industry, if that is what it was, was capital punishment. It strikes me as grotesque that the state used to murder a man for murdering another man.
ReplyDeleteBut worse still is that ordinary people were expected/forced to watch the hanging. I cannot think of anything more barbaric than onlookers cheering, as the condemned man is choked to death.
The picture - one is tempted in to explore. Perhaps at one's peril! Imagine working on such detail.
ReplyDeleteLucy
Thanks both. I'm no expert but reading accounts of hangings it was very ritualised and the crowds regarded it as a day out (especially the pick pockets). I don't think they were forced to attend. Barbaric in my view.
ReplyDelete