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The Invention Of Murder: How The Victorians Revelled In Death And Detection And Created Modern Crime (2013)

by Judith Flanders(Favorite Author)

3.38 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1250024870 (ISBN13: 9781250024879)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Thomas Dunne Books

review 1: I don't think I've ever used the phrase, "Don't judge a book by its cover" in the negative sense, but it's the most apt evaluation I can give of this meandering, detail-heavy (in a disruptive way) tome that is less about murder than it is about the evolution of Victorian culture. I won't give this book a review because I gave it 100 pages and then finally decided to cut my losses. Flanders conceivably has a point with her work, but I'll be damned if I could find it in the first 100 pages. It's obviously meticulously researched, but that doesn't mean it could have benefitted from another round (or 3) of edits. There's some really interesting stuff here, but it's packaged in a way that makes the reader work too damn hard. I can't recommend this.
review 2: This ti... moretle is clearly gearing up for a rendition of ‘popular history’ - if we’re going to get specific then the invention of murder dates back to medieval period with the distinction between killing (homicide) and killing in secret (murder, or incurring a murdrum fine), though this is of course a matter of debate and much uncertainty. This examination of Victorian fascination with crime has admittedly repetitive structure, although from an academic standpoint this does make each section easy to follow and clearly comparable, though it could do with sub-sections in chapters. The latter half of “Poison” was of particular interest, as were "Violence" and "Modernity." This is certainly worth a look if you're interested in Victorian crime and its interaction with the contemporary media, drama and the developing genre of crime/detective fiction, especially that of Dickens and Sherlock Holmes. less

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