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tizo's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
eetresch's review against another edition
4.0
I love murder mysteries and I love history. This book was pretty scattershot and at times, a little hard to follow. However, based on my interests, I stuck with it and I enjoyed it.
silvermadeleine's review against another edition
dark
informative
mysterious
medium-paced
4.0
I now know that I was wrong to believe that true crime ghouls were a 21st century phenomenon. Back in the 19th century they were attending hangings en masse, paying to be shown crime scenes, purchasing china figures representing murderers, and spending their last tuppence on hysterical large-type broadsides. Judith Flanders is an excellent writer with a wealth of Victoriana knowledge at her fingertips, though the litany of crimes committed grew wearisome. They were sordid and depressing murders, mostly men killing men they wanted to rob or women whose presence had become inconvenient. I would have liked some discussion of what this all says about human nature, but I suppose that was beyond the scope of the book. Some bits I'd like to remember:
- "Penny-bloods" was the original name for the lurid stories, aimed at working-class youth, renamed "penny-dreadfuls" in the 1860s.
- Boy-detectives also first appeared in the 1860s.
- During Victoria's 63-year reign, 26 percent of convicted murders were men who had killed their wives, while 1 percent were women who had killed their husbands. That meant a lot of publicity when a woman did kill her husband.
- There were very few poisoning cases, though they figured large in the public imagination.
- The English police force was entirely male until 1883, when two women were hired to look after female prisoners at police stations.
shannasbooksnhooks's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
aportraitinflesh's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Alcoholism, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Death, Domestic abuse, Gore, Hate crime, Mental illness, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicide, Torture, Violence, Blood, Excrement, Police brutality, Antisemitism, Medical content, Kidnapping, Murder, Alcohol, and Classism
annacttn's review against another edition
2.0
2.5 stars.
I feel like the author’s entire thesis—how the Victorians reveled in death and detection and created modern crime—is severely undermined by all the instances the author gives of the Victorians copying French sensationalist plays and stories concerning murder. Much more interesting was the author’s recount of the modern police’s formation in England and how, at its core, it has always been an tryannical, incompetent force. To quote, “...to many of the city’s population, the police were not simply preventing crimes, but enforcing new middle-class norms of behavior on every class, a pattern emerging across the country. In 1843 The Manchester council charged the police with enforcing laws against dogfighting and bear-baiting; they were also expected to prevent Sunday drinking. In Leeds, the council wanted the police to give evidence against all who ‘profane [sic] the Lord’s day’. Changing expectations were turning what had been really unpleasant actions—or even merely working-class pastimes—into criminal ones. Hawking without a license, musical performances in unlicensed premises, being drunk and disorderly, perpetrating low-level violence—all this was now not simply undesirable, but illegal. In the slang of the time, the police were now ‘blue drones’, ‘blue idlers’, ‘blue locusts’—they were parasites, living off the working classes” (149).
I feel like the author’s entire thesis—how the Victorians reveled in death and detection and created modern crime—is severely undermined by all the instances the author gives of the Victorians copying French sensationalist plays and stories concerning murder. Much more interesting was the author’s recount of the modern police’s formation in England and how, at its core, it has always been an tryannical, incompetent force. To quote, “...to many of the city’s population, the police were not simply preventing crimes, but enforcing new middle-class norms of behavior on every class, a pattern emerging across the country. In 1843 The Manchester council charged the police with enforcing laws against dogfighting and bear-baiting; they were also expected to prevent Sunday drinking. In Leeds, the council wanted the police to give evidence against all who ‘profane [sic] the Lord’s day’. Changing expectations were turning what had been really unpleasant actions—or even merely working-class pastimes—into criminal ones. Hawking without a license, musical performances in unlicensed premises, being drunk and disorderly, perpetrating low-level violence—all this was now not simply undesirable, but illegal. In the slang of the time, the police were now ‘blue drones’, ‘blue idlers’, ‘blue locusts’—they were parasites, living off the working classes” (149).