A handbook on hanging: Being a short introduction to the fine art of execution, containing much useful information on neck-breaking, throttling, ... of interest including the anatomy of murder - Softcover

Duff, Charles

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0904526593 ISBN 13: 9780904526592

Publisher: Journeyman Press, 1981

Synopsis

A Handbook on Hanging is a Swiftian tribute to that unappreciated mainstay of civilization: the hangman. With barbed insouciance, Charles Duff writes not only of hanging but of electrocution, decapitations, and gassings; of innocent men executed and of executions botched; of the bloodlust of mobs and the shabby excuses of the great. This coruscating and, in contemporary America, very relevant polemic makes clear that whatever else capital punishment may be said to be--justice, vengeance, a deterrent--it is certainly killing.

About this title

About the Author

CHARLES DUFF (1894–1966), who also went by his Gaelic name Cathal Ó Dubh, was born in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, in what is now Northern Ireland. He served in the British Merchant Navy, fought in World War I, and subsequently entered the British Foreign Service. Duff was a gifted linguist, fluent in seven languages, and in his later years he worked as a freelance writer and translator. His own writing included plays, travel essays, and an introduction to James Joyce; among his many translations were works by Quevedo, Zola, B. Traven, Gorky, and Arnold Zweig.

From Library Journal

This is a chronicle of hanging and other forms of capital punishment throughout history. It is also a tongue-in-cheek commentary on humankind's fervor for public executions and other grisly forms of entertainment. Though published in 1923, this is not out of place in today's society.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Journeyman Press
• Publication date: 1981
• ISBN 10: 0904526593
• ISBN 13: 9780904526592
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 191