“The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime”, by Judith Flanders

576 pages, St. Martin’s Griffin, ISBN-13: 978-1250048530

The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime by Judith Flanders is a fascinating look at how the prim-and-proper Victorians created the modern spectator sport surrounding murder trials and other violent crimes. Our author follows several headlining cases of murder from the Victorian era (that would be from June 1837 until January 1901) and how each one contributed to the evolution of crime investigation and journalism, both of which grew up simultaneously alongside one other. Thus, we can blame those blasted Victorians for the present-day media circuses that surround every high-profile murder, but we can also thank them for a great deal of the modern criminal justice system; modern police procedure as we know it only really came into being in the 19^th Century, and newspapers in this time became much more exciting, crammed with yellow journalism and sensationalism (indeed, newspapers often convicted a suspect before he ever set foot in a courtroom – think “fake news” is a modern phenomenon? Think again – and this book details the history of newspapers’ involvement with several early crime cases).

Seeing as this book is entirely set in Britain, I confess that I hadn’t heard of most of these cases; the often grisly crimes described here, the media representations of them and the public reactions to them make for fascinating reading (as when the body of poor Harriet Lane, who had been missing for a year was finally discovered, “Harriet Lane” became a macabre joke name for tinned meat. Jesus). Oh, I heard of the last one, alright, for Flanders winds up her book with a final chapter detailing the ravages of one Jack the Ripper, which in her telling seems a culmination of all the murder sprees she described preceding it, rather than an outlier. This is not a detailed list of murders with gory details; rather Flanders highlights various murders and how they were integrated into novels (Dickens, Thackeray and Collins among others), newspapers and…Staffordshire pottery. She also examines how English law changed during this time in history, largely because of how crime was perceived.

I found The Invention of Murder to be an enjoyable read, especially if you love all things English and Victorian culture and history, especially. We all complain about how modern culture is awash in violence and gore, and think it is a modern-day phenomenon; what Flanders’ book illustrates that our interest in “true crime” is not new. If you are looking for a pure true crime hit list this is not for you; if you have an interest in scholarly works and history you will enjoy it very much.