Evil Encounters: Two Victorian Sensations - Hardcover

Altick, Richard D.

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9780719543739: Evil Encounters: Two Victorian Sensations

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0719543738 ISBN 13: 9780719543739

Publisher: John Murray, 1987

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In July 1861 London newspapers excitedly reported a 'Deadly Encounter in Northumberland Street', off the Strand, between Major Murray, a retired Army officer, and William Roberts, a moneylender. The encounter left Murray with bullet wounds in his head and neck and Roberts with several bones in his skull shattered. On the same day, the papers were full of news about the attempt by a French nobleman, the Baron de Vidil, to bludgeon his son to death while out riding along a secluded lane in Twickenham. When the background details of these cases emerged in court, the press had a field-day: a beautiful young mistress, blackmail, sexual infatuation, greed for a young man's inheritance. Not only did the press report rumour as well as what seemed to be fact, they also speculated about the credibility of witnesses, assessed character, and decided guilt. The public were enthralled. Richard D. Altick demonstrates that these causes celebres, as presented by the press, set the tone for the Victorian 'age of sensation'. The public's fascination with crime, passion and suspense came into its own in the 1860s; the expansion of the daily press contributed to the phenomenon. A climate of interest had been created and well-known Victorian writers did not hesitate to respond to public demand and wove into their works 'sensational' incidents ? the Irish playwright Boucicault and novelists such as Wilkie Collins, Dickens, Trollope and, later in the century, George Eliot, Stevenson and Hardy. Evil Encounters sets the scene for later celebrated crime cases such as Jack the Ripper and Dr Crippen.

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