The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime - Couverture rigide

Flanders, Judith

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0007248881 ISBN 13 : 9780007248889

Editeur : HarperPress, 2011

Synopsis

"We are a trading community, a commercial people. Murder is doubtless a very shocking offence, nevertheless as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it." Punch 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 fiancee 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.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

A deeply engaging and completely original book about nineteenth-century Britain s fascination with good quality murder.

Murder in nineteenth-century Britain was ubiquitous not necessarily in quantity but in quality. This was the era of penny-bloods, early crime fiction and melodramas for the masses. This was a time when murder and entertainment were firmly entwined.

In this meticulously researched and compelling book, Judith Flanders, author of Consuming Passions, takes us back in time to explore some of the most gripping, gruesome and mind-boggling murders of the nineteenth-century. Covering the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper, as well as the lesser known but equally shocking acts of Burke and Hare, and Thurtell and Hunt, Flanders looks at how murder was regarded by the wider British population and how it became a form of popular entertainment.

Filled to the brim with rich source material ranging from studies of plays, novels and contemporary newspaper articles, A Social History of Murder brings to life a neglected dimension of British social history in a completely new and exciting way.

Revue de presse :

Praise for Consuming Passions:

Consuming Passions tells the story of Victorian leisure and pleasure as an interrelated and intricate set of transformations...no single book could bind so complex and vast a field within a single theory...(it) leads its crocodile of readers on an eccentric, meandering path through the question of how Victorians took pleasure...its pursuit proves a fascinating, bewildering, marvel-crammed quest. Guardian

It is a world explored with much wit and insight...Flanders is excellent...It s a rich mix [and]...fluently written...It has every chance of becoming a bestseller. Sunday Telegraph

Formidable...[an] excellent study...a major achievement. Observer

--Sunday Telegraph and The Observer

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: HarperPress
• Date d'édition: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0007248881
• ISBN 13: 9780007248889
• Reliure: Relié
• Numéro d'édition: 1
• Nombre de pages: 556