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

The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
Judith Flanders

“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 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.

JUDITH FLANDERS

The Invention of Murder

How the Victorians Revelled in Death and

Detection and Invented Modern Crime

For Susan and Ellen without whom …

CONTENTS

Cover (#u53dfad48-e89c-5275-bfae-f10c4fd78e08)

Title Page (#u7af3a250-5854-5472-b7c4-bdad1684b83c)

TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS (#ue847dbe8-520b-563e-bb2c-5f6bec749576)

A NOTE ON CURRENCY (#u1be6c281-2c1a-5392-b5e6-9983fa77ec97)

ONE Imagining Murder (#ub0fe3826-216f-5fc9-93d9-2b4038ae46f1)

TWO Trial by Newspaper (#u0f548967-8f4b-5d19-a255-eaeb0702a2eb)

THREE Entertaining Murder (#u03aa23b5-6ea7-530e-ba2e-20e6ab697559)

FOUR Policing Murder (#ue864b63e-879a-5d16-9375-952515651eeb)

FIVE Panic (#litres_trial_promo)

SIX Middle-Class Poisoners (#litres_trial_promo)

SEVEN Science, Technology and the Law (#litres_trial_promo)

EIGHT Violence (#litres_trial_promo)

NINE Modernity (#litres_trial_promo)

NOTES (#litres_trial_promo)

SOURCES (#litres_trial_promo)

SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY (#litres_trial_promo)

INDEX (#litres_trial_promo)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)

By the same author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS (#ulink_936116b8-bc10-532e-bb4e-bd68062f77f7)

‘The funeral of the murdered Mr. and Mrs. Marr and infant son’, broadside of c.1811. (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford: John Johnson Collection/JJ Crime 10[13])

‘The public Exhibition of the Body of Williams’, from The New Newgate Calendar, Vol. V by Andrew Knapp and William Baldwin, c.1826.

‘The pond in the garden, into which Mr. Weare was first thrown’, from Pierce Egan’s Account of the Trial of John Thurtell and Joseph Hunt, 1824.

‘Execution of William Corder at Bury, August 11 1828’, from An Authentic and Faithful History of the Mysterious Murder of Maria Marten by J. Curtis, 1828.

‘Elegiac Lines on the Tragical Murder of Poor Daft Jamie’, broadside of 1829. (National Library of Scotland, Ry.III.a.6[017])

‘New’ policeman, from a song-sheet c.1830. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

‘Apprehension of the Murderer of the Female whose Body was found in the Edgware Road in December last’, broadside of 1837. (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford: John Johnson Collection/JJ Broadsides: Murder & Executions Folder 6[5])

‘Two sudden blows with a ragged stick and one with a heavy one’, illustration by William Harvey for ‘The Dream of Eugene Aram, The Murderer’ by Thomas Hood, 1831.

Playbill for Jim Myers’ Great American Circus at the Pavilion Theatre, June 1859, including Turpin’s Ride to York, or, The Death of Bonny Black Bess. (Theatre & Performance Collection, Victoria and Albert Museum, London/© V&A Images)

‘“Parties” for the gallows’, Punch cartoon, 1845.

‘Interior of the court-house, during the trial of Rush – examination of Eliza Chestney’, from the Illustrated London News, 7 April 1849. (Mary Evans Picture Library)

‘See, dear, what a sweet doll Ma-a has made for me’, Punch cartoon, 1850.

‘Madame Tussaud her wax werkes: ye Chamber of Horrors!!’, Punch cartoon, 1849.

‘Execution of the Mannings’, broadside of 1849. (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford: John Johnson Collection/JJ Crime 2[5])

‘The Telegraph Office’, from The Progress of Crime: or, Authentic Memoirs of Marie Manning by Robert Huish, 1849. (© The British Library Board. All rights reserved 2011)

‘Awful Murder of Lord William Russell, MP’, broadside of 1840. (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford: John Johnson Collection/JJ Broadsides: Murder & Executions Folder 10[29])

Advertisement for Dr. Mackenzie’s Arsenical Toilet Soap, 1898.

‘Sarah Chesham’s Lamentation’, broadside of c.1851. (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford: Firth c.17[261]) ‘Fatal facility; or, Poisons for the asking’, Punch cartoon, 1849. Thomas Griffiths Wainewright, self-portrait, from Janus Weathercock by Jonathan Curling, 1938.

‘Drs. Taylor and Rees performing their analysis’, from Illustrated and unabridged edition of the Times report of the trial of W. Palmer for poisoning J.P. Cook, 1856. (© The British Library Board. All rights reserved 2011)

‘The Life, Confession and Execution of Mrs. Burdock’, broadside of 1835. (© The British Library Board. All rights reserved 2011)