Macabre tales of death and mourning in Victorian America.

"Superb... Flanders's convincing and smart synthesis of the evolution of an official police force, fictional detectives, and real-life cause célèbres will appeal to devotees of true crime and detective fiction alike." -Publishers Weekly, starred review In this fascinating exploration of murder in nineteenth century England, Judith Flanders examines some of the most gripping cases that captivated the Victorians and gave rise to the first detective fiction Murder in the nineteenth century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment became ubiquitous, with cold-blooded killings transformed into novels, broadsides, ballads, opera, and melodrama-even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts. Detective fiction and the new police force developed in parallel, each imitating the other-the founders of Scotland Yard gave rise to Dickens's Inspector Bucket, the first fictional police detective, who in turn influenced Sherlock Holmes and, ultimately, even P.D. James and Patricia Cornwell. In this meticulously researched and engrossing book, Judith Flanders retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder in Great Britain, both famous and obscure: from Greenacre, who transported his dismembered fiancée around town by omnibus, to Burke and Hare's bodysnatching business in Edinburgh; from the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper, to the tragedy of the murdered Marr family in London's East End. Through these stories of murder-from the brutal to the pathetic-Flanders builds a rich and multi-faceted portrait of Victorian society in Great Britain. With an irresistible cast of swindlers, forgers, and poisoners, the mad, the bad and the utterly dangerous, The Invention of Murder is both a mesmerizing tale of crime and punishment, and history at its most readable.

A vivid and graphic survey of the casualties of childhood during the Victorian Era through detailed and never-before-seen firsthand accounts. Take a fascinating journey into the real lives of Victorian children—how they lived, worked, played, and far too often, died before reaching adulthood. These true accounts, many of which had been hidden for more than a century, reveal the hardship and cruel conditions endured by young people living through the tumult of the Industrial Revolution. Here are the lives of a traveling fair child, an apprentice at sea, and a young trapper, as well as the children of prostitutes, servant girls, debutantes, and married women, all unified in the tragedy of early death. Drawing on actual cases of infanticide and baby farming, historian Sarah Seaton uncovers the dismal realities of the Victorian Era’s unwed mothers, whose shame at being pregnant drove them to carry out horrendous crimes. With the introduction of the New Poor Law in 1834, the future for some poor children changed—but not for the better. Yet it was the tragic loss of these many young lives that lead to essential reforms, and eventually to today’s more enlightened views on childhood.

In this provocative look at Victorian America, Kenneth Ames explores the minds of Victorians by examining some of their most distinctive and fascinating creations. Featuring five once-prominent home furnishings, he reconstructs a vanished culture and demonstrates the centrality of the artifact to historical understanding. Richly illustrated with photographs of surviving objects as well as images from a wide variety of period sources, the five essays discuss specific pieces—hallstands, sideboards, embroidered mottoes, parlor organs, and seating furniture—within the context of broader cultural issues and concerns. Ames reveals not only the major outlines of Victorian culture but also the conflicts and tensions deep within that culture. An extraordinary proliferation of goods characterizes the Victorian world. Throughout the study, Ames considers the relationship of some of these household objects to issues of class, gender, and place. For example, the importance of public image was dramatized by the rituals of the front hall in Victorian homes: its placement within the house, the massive hallstand with its receptacles for calling cards and umbrellas, accommodations for temporary and usually uncomfortable seating. The dining room was a shrine to the notion of "man's" dominion over nature—each elaborately carved sideboard displayed a frieze of slaughtered game and harvested vegetation. Parlor organs, a blending of the sacred and the profane, provided an occasion to display feminine accomplishment and to symbolize the role of the bourgeois Christian lady. Ames also discusses how the prevailing class and gender hierarchy was echoed in the posture of seating furniture and its arrangement. The author is one of the premier interpreters of Victorian culture in America. His witty, provocative, and irreverent commentary on the "quaint" fixtures of the Victorian household will fascinate scholars, antique buffs, and collectors on nostalgia. Author note: Kenneth L. Ames is Chief of Historical and Anthropological Surveys at the New York State Museum and was formerly Chair of the Office of Advanced Studies at the Winterthur Museum.

This literary and cultural study explores the practice in nineteenth-century Britain of treasuring objects that had belonged to the dead.

This engrossing book explores family experiences of dying, death, grieving, and mourning in the years between 1830 and 1920. So many Victorian letters, diaries, and death memorials reveal a deep preoccupation with death which is both fascinating and enlightening. Pat Jalland has examined the correspondence, diaries, and death memorials of fifty-five families to show us deathbed scenes of the time, good and bad deaths, the roles of medicine and religion, children's deaths, funerals and cremations, widowhood, and mourning rituals.

Details the unsolved murder of successful attorney Charles Bravo, a cruel man who tormented his wife Florence, in a mystery that paints a portrait of Victorian culture and one woman's fight to exist in this repressive society.

The Christian idea of a good death had its roots in the Middle Ages with ars moriendi, featuring reliance on Jesus as Savior, preparedness for the life to come and for any spiritual battle that might ensue when on the threshold of death, and death not taking place in isolation. Evangelicalism introduced new features to the good death, with its focus on conversion, sanctification and an intimate relationship with Jesus. Scholarship focused on mid-nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformist beliefs about death and the afterlife is sparse. This book fills the gap, contributing an understanding not only of death but of the history of Methodist and evangelical Nonconformist piety, theology, social background and literary expression in mid-nineteenth-century England. A good death was as central to Methodism as conversion and holiness. Analyzing over 1,200 obituaries, Riso reveals that while the last words of the dying pointed to a timeless experience of hope in the life to come, the obituaries reflect changing attitudes towards death and the afterlife among nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformist observers who looked increasingly to earthly existence for the fulfillment of hopes. Exploring tensions in Nonconformist allegiance to both worldly and spiritual matters, this book offers an invaluable contribution to death studies, Methodism, and Evangelical theology.

A rich selection from diaries, letters, advice books, magazines, and paintings creates a rooms-by-room portrait of Victorian life--from childbirth in the master bedroom to separate gender domains in the drawing room and parlor.

Death is something we all confront—it touches our families, our homes, our hearts. And yet we have grown used to denying its existence, treating it as an enemy to be beaten back with medical advances.We are living at a unique point in human history. People are living longer than ever, yet the longer we live, the more taboo and alien our mortality becomes. Yet we, and our loved ones, still remain mortal. People today still struggle with this fact, as we have done throughout our entire history. What led us to this point? What drove us to sanitize death and make it foreign and unfamiliar?Schillace shows how talking about death, and the rituals associated with it, can help provide answers. It also brings us closer together—conversation and community are just as important for living as for dying. Some of the stories are strikingly unfamiliar; others are far more familiar than you might suppose. But all reveal much about the present—and about ourselves.