About the Author

Judith Flanders is the author of critically acclaimed A Circle of Sisters (2001) – a biography of Alice Kipling, Georgiana Burne-Jones, Agnes Poynder and Louisa Baldwin – which was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award, the bestselling The Victorian House – Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed and the widely acclaimed Consuming Passions: Leisure and Pleasure in Victorian England (2006). She is a frequent contributor to the Daily Telegraph, Guardian, Evening Standard, Spectator and the TLS. She lives in London.

Reviews

‘Engrossing…Flanders excels at following the trends in detection and how this was reflected in writing’ Sunday Times ‘Riveting and meticulous…Flanders balances judicious facts with lively story-telling…the research behind this book is phenomenal…THE INVENTION OF MUDER is what great non-fiction should be; as erudite as it is entertaining, as gripping as fiction despite being “stranger than fiction”’ Scotland on Sunday ‘Compelling…remarkable…in this intelligent and comprehensive compendium of murder, she has left no gravestone unturned’ Sunday Telegraph ‘Want to be appalled by a book? Then try this one…In more than 400 blood-soaked pages Judith Flanders lovingly traces the progression of notorious Victorian murders and the public’s taste for them…with her expert knowledge and guidance we can shudder at the violence or the cold-calculation of murderers…excellent, well-written and hugely well-informed’ Daily Mail ‘This is so much more than a compendium of famous crimes…Flanders’s knowledge of the period is both wide and extraordinarily deep. She writes incisively, and often with dark wit. Best of all, she had a wonderful ability to make connections and to show us familiar sights from unexpected angles…in this unrelievedly excellent book’ Independent

Social historian Flanders (Inside the Victorian Home: A Portrait of Domestic Life in Victorian England) does a superb job of demonstrating the role that the press and fiction writers played in shaping the British public's attitudes toward crime during the 19th century. She captures perfectly the appeal of bloody fiction and macabre news stories: "Crime, especially murder, is very pleasant to think about in the abstract: it is like hearing blustery rain on the windowpane when sitting indoors." But it's unlikely that the British thought of murder much at all during the first decade of the 19th century-in 1810, there were a mere 15 murder convictions in England and Wales combined. The public's perception of random lethal violence changed with the horrific 1811 Ratcliffe Highway killings, brutal mass murders in London's East End that coincided with technological advances that enabled swifter and cheaper production of broadsheets describing the crimes. Flanders's convincing and smart synthesis of the evolution of an official police force, fictional detectives, and real-life cause celebres will appeal to devotees of true crime and detective fiction alike. B&w illus. throughout. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Brilliantly researched and rendered, this is an indispensable read for anyone-scholars and the general public alike-who harbors an interest in the evolution of the notion and representation of murder. UK social historian Flanders (The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London) has written a remarkable cultural history that chronicles the way murder was regarded and written about during the Victorian era. Having sifted through innumerable broadsides, newspapers, journals, and fictional pieces of the time, Flanders posits that our modern understanding of-and our fascination with-murder has been shaped by Victorian cultural mores and representations in print media, drama, and literature. The chapter titles provide an outline of the historical development of our relationship with murder: "Imagining Murder," "Trial by Newspaper, "Entertaining Murder," "Policing Murder," "Panic," "Middle-Class Poisoners," Science, Technology and the Law, "Violence," and "Modernity." Flanders presents a fascinating narrative in well-crafted and at times suitably ironic prose. VERDICT Perfect for readers who enjoyed Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective. An absorbing contribution to the history of crime.-Lynne Maxwell, Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law Lib., PA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.