A Very British Murder - Tapa dura

"Worsley's book covers a great deal of ground...it provides an excellent overview of how the consumption of crime became a dominant part of our cultural landscape" (The Sunday Times)

"Worsley captures this bloody love affair very well" (The Independent)

"Worsley retells the stories of famous murderers and legendary criminals in delightfully readable language, with the occasional sharp, illuminating comment" (Literary Review)

Murder – a dark, shameful deed, the last resort of the desperate or a vile tool of the greedy. And a very strange, very British obsession. But where did this fixation develop? And what does it tell us about ourselves?

In A Very British Murder, Lucy Worsley explores this phenomenon in forensic detail, revisiting notorious crimes like the Ratcliff Highway Murders, which caused a nation-wide panic in the early nineteenth century, and the case of Frederick and Maria Manning, the suburban couple who were hanged after killing Maria’s lover and burying him under their kitchen floor. Our fascination with crimes like these became a form of national entertainment, inspiring novels and plays, puppet shows and paintings, poetry and true-crime journalism. At a point during the birth of modern Britain, murder entered our national psyche, and it’s been a part of us ever since.

A Very British Murder is a unique exploration of the art of crime, and a riveting investigation into the British soul by one of our finest historians.