TITLE: The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
AUTHOR: Judith Flanders
PUBLISHER: Thomas Dunne Books-St. Martin’s Press
PUBLISHING CITY: New York
EDITION: First Edition
DATE: July 23, 2013
ISBN-10: 1250024870 Q I. WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS HISTORICAL AREA AND THIS BOOK? At the library, I was recommended Judith Flander 's The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime because it combines to of my interests-Victorian Era and Criminology. The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime is set in Victorian England,Victorian Era during …show more content…
Middle class children would play with murderer dolls or puppet shows and visit Madame Tussaud’s Chamber of Horrors. Murder sightseeing was popular entertainment for the middle class to poor. Newspapers, broadsides, anatomy theatres, hospitals, penny bloods, theatres, penny gaffs, playwrights, novelists, bookstores, pubs, coffeehouses, dog acts, etc. all made money from murder watching. People would visit the site of the murder, see the body where the crime occurred, receive handbills offering rewards, and watch the police investigate (Flanders 3). During the trial, the public could see the trial and watch the execution, by hanging. The middle class believed that execution day was the most festive. After an execution, the body of the murderer was shown to the public and doctors would publicly perform an autopsy. After the murder, people would create ballads, plays, broadsides, newspaper articles, comedies, operas, art, drawings, waxworks, and pictures, which all centered on murder. This was the life of the average middle class person in The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern