Rogue Scholar: The Sinister Life and Celebrated Death of Edward H. Rulloff

by Richard W. Bailey

This is the tale of the insalubrious and utterly failed life of the notorious nineteenth-century thief, murderer, professional impostor, and would-be philologist Edward Rulloff, who was condemned to die and hanged for his crimes. The life of Rulloff is a sordid account of misguided genius and abysmal consequences. Those who loved him courted disaster, and, in every case, the courtship flowered into catastrophe.
Richard Bailey's narrative, calm and impartial yet spiked with wit and suspense, captures perfectly the slightly haunted and overwrought air of Victorian rural America, calling on newspaper accounts, interviews, and eyewitness reports of the day. Inevitably, the quiet accumulation of details builds to a story that transcends its individual events to touch on the universal themes of any age.
Rogue Scholar is about the evil of one man who lived a life of deception and crime. Yet in a larger sense it is also the portrait of a condemned soul in its final hours, an examination of the death penalty, and a reminder that media sensationalism is nothing new.

275 pages, Hardcover

First published August 12, 2003

About the author

Professor Richard Weld Bailey taught in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Michigan for 42 years (1965 –2007), where he was honored in 2002 with a collegiate professorship: the Fred Newton Scott Collegiate Professor of English.

He was a pioneer in the application of computers to research in the humanities,attending early conferences sponsored by IBM and the Rand Corporation (1964 and 1967).

Reviews

[Kate Winkler Dawson · Rating 4 out of 5]

There should be a "currently re-reading" option. This is a fantastic book (though more academic and less narrative) about a creepy character.

[Jon Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw this man's brain in a jar visiting Cornell University. It seems visually to be significantly larger than an ordinary brain. He used he intelligence for nefarious purposes. The book is well written. I believe it's been out of print for a long time, as I had difficulty obtaining a copy. I'm glad I did. Highly recommended if you're into historical true crime. 👍