The Battered Body Beneath the Flagstones & Other Victorian Scandals
A collection of shocking, murderous and bizarre true Victorian tales from the UK and the US.
Review
A collection of shocking, murderous and bizarre true Victorian
tales from the UK and the US.For this collection, Michelle Morgan
scoured Old Bailey Online and local historical newspaper databases to
find Victorian crimes, including murder, suicide, assassination and
adultery. Though there are some oldie-but-goodies in the book (it starts
with an extended account of Maria Manning), this is a first airing for
most of the cases presented here.
This is a
great book for dipping in to as all the cases stand alone. The writing
is easy to read and bubbles along, and the stories are brought to life
by bursts of dialogue, which I presume are reconstructed from evidence
presented in court. Where there is evidently little material available
about a case, the account given is short, but a number of cases are
given an extended treatment. The author does not impose her opinion on
the material but presents an impartial account of the case drawn from
factual, historical sources.
The material is organised into
three sections: crimes of passion; scandals related to the theatre; and
the baffling, amusing and perplexing, and includes cases from across the
UK and the US. The book also contains a useful index.
Like
the majority of true crime books that present a collection of cases,
Victorian Scandals does not have a narrative arc and consequently there
is no argument that organises and shapes the material. As a collection,
it is fun to dip in to; the cases themselves are written engagingly and
with appealing dramatisation of key events. For me, the most interesting
section is that concerning the theatre, and if that were developed into
a book on its own, it would be a fascinating read.
Reviewed 11 May 2019 by
Kim Fleet
Kim Fleet spent several years working as an anthropologist
in remote Aboriginal communities and can still sing 'Three Blind Mice' in
Pitjantjatjara.
