A Very British Murder

Product Information

Several high interest and notorious crimes are highlighted throughout and the murderers lives described. From public hangings, to wax museums, to Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, to Sherlock Holmes and forensic science, to sensation novels, to the first female detective fiction, to the Golden Age crime novelists and more, this work covers a lot of ground without ever getting bogged down. Soon after that I moved to the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, in the lovely job for administrator of the Wind and Watermills Section. Then investigates how after the First World War, the murder mystery novel reached a peak of popularity in the hands of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L Sayers. From a Regency serial killer to Agatha Christie, this is the story of how crime was turned into art.

It is focussed less on actual crime but more on our fascination with it - and how in a lot of ways it became a source of entertainment for the public and inspiration for many fictional stories. By using the Web site, you confirm that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by the Terms and Conditions.The first half of the book was much more detailed than the second which felt rather rushed, nevertheless I enjoyed Worsley's potted history being a fan of crime fiction and found that there were many ideas new to me. Worsley also presented a companion TV series (which I didn’t watch) and the book is written in an episodic format, presumably to tie in with that. This is not really about crime, as such, although many crimes are discussed - it is about how, especially since the nineteenth century, the British began to "enjoy and consume the idea of a murder.

Lucy Worsley's book and series, A VERY BRITISH MURDER, investigates the way that British people have enjoyed – yes, enjoyed – murder. Ture crime is used as a starting point to show the fascination and natural progression to creating fictional equivalents. It appeared to be short chapters on famous Victorian murders but suddenly morphed into what the Victorian reader trends were regarding murders and the reporting thereof. The post Second World War section was rushed, and there was nothing about the current state of play regarding the never ending fascination with the genre.She makes the case that the fascination with murder corresponded to the increasing urbanisation of Britain during the nineteenth century which, because neighbours no longer knew each other as they had done in a more rural age, meant that murders could be much harder to detect. Since this book is about our obsession with crime (mostly true but also fictional), the emphasis here is not on the various cases. A very early contribution was 'The Adventures of Susan Hopley, or Circumstantial Evidence' of 1841 in which the heroine solves a murder and then there was 'The Female Detective' and 'Revelations of a Female Detective' by Andrew Forrester and WS Hayward, both books starring a professional heroine who was employed purely to solve crimes. I found the history of the police and detective forces, developing from the older system of constables and watchmen, particularly interesting. Now and then Worsley will wander into spoiler-y territory regarding particular books, but I’m not pointing this out as a complaint.

For example, the murder of Maria Marten inspired one of the most popular ballads of 1828 and from there, the book looks at other murder paraphernalia, such as ceramic figures. He even imagined a sick new kind of club where ‘connoisseurs of murder’ discuss their favourite crimes.Initially there was also a theatrical style of entertainment - the melodrama - with its overacting and dramatic makeup, intended to make the actor's facial expressions visible to packed audiences in large auditoriums. In 1849 the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria's lover and burying him under their kitchen floor, spurned what was alleged to be the authentic memoirs of Maria Manning.

A Very British Murder is a unique exploration of the art of crime, and a riveting investigation into the British soul by one of our finest historians. A Very British Murder is an extremely readable, sometimes gossipy survey of the development of crime/mystery literature in Britain, up to the Golden Age of Sayers and Christie. In addition, she talks about the founding of the organized police force, detective work, ‘Penny Bloods’ (the precursor to crime fiction), poisonings, and forensic science. Worsley gives us enough information to understand what’s happening, and then she delves into the events surrounding the case.One of the early detectives featured is Mr Whicher the man who inspired the fantastic read The Suspicions of Mr Whicher by Kate Summerscale which I read before I started reviewing but still sits on my bookshelf! The next chapter continues the story by looking at the puppets that were used to stage a reenactment of the murder, which launches us into the history of these shows. If you have read the Flanders book, there is supplemental information here, and while Worsley does focus on more of the cases, since she is focusing on fewer, there is more information.