Murder by the book : the crime that shocked Dickens's London

Title:

Author:

Harman, Claire, author.

Personal Author:

Harman, Claire, author.

ISBN:

9780525520399

Edition:

First American edition.

Physical Description:

252 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), map ; 22 cm

General Note:

"This is a Borzoi Book."

Contents:

A last walk -- The crime -- "This nightmare of a book" -- The play -- The investigation -- The trial -- In the Stone Jug -- The execution -- The aftermath -- Postscript : unanswered questions.

Abstract:

"From award-winning biographer Claire Harman, [this book] is the fascinating story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill? Early in the morning of May 6, 1840, on a highly respectable Mayfair street, a footman answered the door to a panic-stricken maid from a nearby house. Her elderly master, Lord William Russell, was lying in bed with his throat cut so deeply that the head was almost severed. The whole of London, from monarch to street urchins, was soon gripped by the crime's gory details--and panicked by its significance. For behind the Russell murder was another story, the part played in the crime by the season's most sensational novel, Jack Sheppard, the saga of an unrepentant thief who escaped from justice time and again. The book, by William Harrison Ainsworth, had already sparked a crime wave in the capital, and when Lord William's murderer claimed to have been corrupted by the tale, it ignited a fierce debate about writers and morality that drew Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, into the fray. Harman combines a riveting whodunit with a literary scandal that involved the most famous writers of the day. Impeccably researched and beautifully crafted, Murder by the Book is an utterly beguiling read that sheds new light on a notorious historical mystery and the enigmatic path from virtue to the gallows."--Dust jacket.

"From the prize-winning biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: can a novel kill? In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. The brutal murder had the whole city talking. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak. And the missing clue lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading. In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading. The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. Even Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, fell under the spell of these tales--Dickens publicly admiring them, Thackeray rejecting them. One such phenomenon was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, the story of an unrepentant criminal who escaped the gallows time and again. When Courvoisier finally confessed his guilt, he would cite this novel in his defense. Murder By the Book combines the thrilling true-crime story with a illuminating account of the rise of the novel form and the battle for its early soul between the most famous writers of the time. It is a superbly researched, vividly written, fascinating read from first to last"-- Provided by publisher.

Personal Subject:

Ainsworth, William Harrison, 1805-1882. Jack Sheppard.

Courvoisier, FrancÌʹois Benjamin, -1840-Trials, litigation, etc.

Russell, William, Lord, 1767-1840.

Subject Term:

Murder in literature.

Murder -- England -- London.

Genre:

True crime stories.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	364.152 H287	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Main Library	Book	364.152 H287	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

"Enthralling . . . A page-turner that can hold its own with any one of the many murder-minded podcasts out there."
--Jezebel

From the acclaimed biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill?

In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. The brutal murder had the whole city talking. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak. The missing clue, it turned out, lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading. In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading. The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. Even Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, fell under the spell of these tales--Dickens publicly admiring them, Thackeray rejecting them. One such phenomenon was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard , the story of an unrepentant criminal who escaped the gallows time and again. When Lord William's murderer finally confessed his guilt, he would cite this novel in his defense. Murder By the Book combines this thrilling true-crime story with an illuminating account of the rise of the novel form and the battle for its early soul among the most famous writers of the time. It is superbly researched, vividly written, and captivating from first to last.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

An endlessly fascinating, bookish tale of true crime in Victorian England.In May 1840, writes literary biographer Harman (Charlotte Bront: A Fiery Heart, 2016), Londoners were shocked to learn of the gruesome killing of an "unobtrusive minor aristocrat" whose throat was cut. The crime occurred in an era when London was full of immigrants and revolutionary and counterrevolutionary movements were roiling about, but suspicion eventually settled on Lord William Russell's valet. Charles Dickens was then well embarked on his novel Barnaby Rudge, which opens with a similarly shocking if not quite so grisly murder. Though, as Harman notes, both he and a young illustrator named William Makepeace Thackeray took notice of the killing, neither could imagine how it would enfold them and other London literati. As visitors came to the site of "ghoulish tourism," so penny dreadfuls were flourishing, courtesy of the likes of Edward Bulwer's Paul Clifford, a "fictionalized account of the real-life murderer Eugene Aram," and William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, with its not ignoble but still criminal hero. These "Newgate novels" were immensely popular, though critics deemed them "a class of bad books, got up for a bad public." They were also influential, it seems, for the valet claimed that he committed the foul deed under the sway of Ainsworth's book. That defense didn't quite work, writes Harman; the perp didn't succeed in "offloading responsibility for his actions onto the year's most notorious youth-corrupter" but instead wound up at the end of a rope. Though full of literary implicationBulwer, for instance, became Bulwer-Lytton, of "it was a dark and stormy night" fame, while Ainsworth is forgottenthe story hangs, beg pardon, on threads of murder most foul and its sequelae: Did the valet act alone? Was Lord William already dead when his throat was slit? What dark secret lay behind the killing?Lovers of Drood, Sherlock, Jack the Ripper, and their kin real and fictional will relish the gruesome details of this entertaining book. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.