Jostling for position in this cornucopia of the criminal and the curious are diverse tales of baby farmers, garrotters, murderers, poisoners, prostitutes, pimps, rioters and rebels. Other tales tell of those who walked the poverty-stricken streets of 'the abyss', trying to earn a few honest coppers by the most unusual and desperate occupations, from tater man to tosher. This colourful cast of characters is accompanied by accounts of prisons and punishments, as well as a liberal smattering of funerals, executions, disasters and bizarre events. If it's horrible, if it's ghastly, if it's strange, its here - and if you have the stomach for it, then read on.

Human psychological and physical well-being is damaged and destroyed when people are deliberately killed by other people. There are millions of primary and secondary victims of murder throughout the world, and human society as a whole is a tertiary victim of murder. Despite this, people are often fascinated and engrossed by stories of homicide and killers. This book provides a fascinating exploration of murder, providing an insight into what leads people to kill and what effect this has on society as a whole. This book is organized into five chapters that each answer a specific question on murder: What is Murder? Who Commits Murder? Why Commit Murder? Why is Murder Devastating? Why is Murder Fascinating?

London: Crime, Death & Debauchery is an alternative history of the darker side of Britain's capital city. No other book on London covers this topic in such a complete fashion, with cases ranging from the Restoration to the early nineteenth century. It weaves macabre accounts into an entertaining criminal history accessible to all. Featuring countless stories of infamous misdeeds and scandalous behaviour, the book includes duelling, murder, gaol breaks, rioting, body snatchers, robbery, suicide, drinking, infanticide, gambling, highwaymen, fraud and executions. Illustrated with a series of engravings, drawings and photographs that help to paint a picture of historic London's seedier side, Neil R. Storey brings together a selection of tales to shock, scare and entertain.

Now in paperback, this book considers crime fighting from the perspective of the civilian city-goer, from the mid-Victorian garotting panics to 1914. It charts the shift from the use of body armour to the adoption of exotic martial arts through the works of popular playwrights and novelists, examining changing ideals of urban, middle-class heroism.

Neil R. Storey's macabre calendar chronicles the darker side of life in Essex. Murderers and footpads, pimps and prostitutes, riots, rebels, bizarre funerals, disaster and peculiar medicine all feature. The book is illustrated with engravings, newspaper reports, photographs and original documents. It is horrible, if it is ghastly, if it is strange, then it is here! If you have the stomach for it, then read on.

This exploration into the development of women's self-defence from 1850 to 1914 features major writers, including H.G. Wells, Elizabeth Robins and Richard Marsh, and encompasses an unusually wide-ranging number of subjects from hatpin crimes to the development of martial arts for women.

A Grim Almanac of Old Berkshire is a day-by-day catalogue of ghastly tales dating from the twelfth to the twentieth centuries. Full of torment and torture, heinous homicides and cataclysms of nature, these pages contain multiple murders, horrendous hauntings and audacious thefts. Have you heard the story of the pub landlord who attempted to end it all by leaping down his own well? All he achieved was a broken ankle. Also featured here are the Watchfield farmer who tried to turn his wife into cooking fat, the family who charged people to view their relative's decapitated body, and the violent poltergeist activity that took place at the old forge at Finchampstead and made national news headlines in 1926. This compilation of grim deeds contains a veritable plethora of poisonings, assaults, drownings, kidnappings, suicides and disasters. If you have ever wondered about what nasty goings-on occurred in the Berkshire of yesteryear, then look no further – it's all here. But do you have the stomach for it?

Taking you through the year day by day, The Reading Book of Days contains a quirky, eccentric, amusing or important event or fact from different periods of history, many of which had a major impact on the religious and political history of England as a whole. Ideal for dipping into, this addictive little book will keep you entertained and informed. Featuring hundreds of snippets of information gleaned from the vaults of Reading's archives, it will delight residents and visitors alike.

In 1826 'resurrection men' stole thirty bodies from the graveyard of St Mary's Church in Nottingham to sell to unscrupulous medical establishments in London. It emerged they had been shipping their cargo to the capital in wicker baskets booked aboard stagecoaches, but they were never caught. In 1908 Mansfield tattooist Arthur Scott attacked a customer who refused to pay his bill. Scott tracked his quarry down after two days and attempted to shoot him. He failed, but it didn't take the police long to find Scott - the only tattooist in Mansfield. On 7 June 1865 Thomas Whittaker left the bar of a Newark pub to visit the toilet in the backyard. As he returned he slipped from the top of a flight of wooden stairs and fell head first into a water butt. He drowned. When Retford eccentric John Clifton died in 1816 he left a deadly legacy. He had a life-long fascination for fireworks and made them for his friends. While sorting through John's things his sister found a tin of black powder, which she thought was worthless, and threw it on the fire. The resulting explosion killed her and demolished the house. A Grim Almanac of Nottinghamshire is a collection of stories from the county's past, some bizarre, some fascinating, some macabre – all absorbing. Revealed here are the dark corners of Nottinghamshire, where witches, body snatchers, highwaymen and murderers have stalked. Within the Almanac's pages we plumb the depths of past despair and peer over the rim of that bottomless chasm where demons lurk. Author Kevin Turton has pored over the historic records of the county to bring together these extraordinary accounts of past events.