A Handbook on Hanging

Duff, Charles (with Introduction By Christopher Hitchens)

ISBN 10: 0940322676 / ISBN 13: 9780940322677

Published by New York Review of Books, New York, 2001

About this Item

Spine colour faded, slight spine cock; internally clean, unmarked and tightly bound. Originally published in 1928, this edition has been revised and enlarged from the original and has a new introduction by Christopher Hitchens. Being a short introduction to the fine art of execution, containing much useful information on neck-breaking, throttling, strangling, aphyxiation, decapitation, and electrocution. 196 pages plus a 1-page Appendix.

Seller Inventory # 19278

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Handbook on Hanging
• Publisher: New York Review of Books, New York
• Publication Date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0940322676
• ISBN 13: 9780940322677
• Binding: Trade Paperback
• Edition: First Thus.
• Condition: Very Good Plus.
• Seller catalogs:
  • Miscellaneous

About this title

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 the Author

Charles Duff (1894–1966) served as an officer in the British Merchant Navy during World War I and then in the intelligence division of the Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service. After retiring, he taught linguistics and languages in London and Singapore while writing travel guides, histories, satires, and a series of textbooks.

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) was a British-American journalist and social critic. Known for his confrontational style and contrarian views on a range of social issues, Hitchens was a frequent contributor to The Nation, The Atlantic, The Times Literary Supplement and Vanity Fair. Hitchens recounts his struggle with esophageal cancer in Mortality, which was published in 2012.