Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London

by Claire Harman

From the acclaimed biographer--the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill?

In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. The brutal murder had the whole city talking. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak. The missing clue, it turned out, lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading.

In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading. The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. Even Dickens and Thackeray, both at the beginning of their careers, fell under the spell of these tales--Dickens publicly admiring them, Thackeray rejecting them. One such phenomenon was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, the story of an unrepentant criminal who escaped the gallows time and again. When Lord William's murderer finally confessed his guilt, he would cite this novel in his defense.

Murder By the Book combines this thrilling true-crime story with an illuminating account of the rise of the novel form and the battle for its early soul among the most famous writers of the time. It is superbly researched, vividly written, and captivating from first to last.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Crime, Mystery, Victorian, Books About Books

272 pages, Hardcover

First published October 25, 2018

About the author

Claire Harman began her career in publishing, at Carcanet Press and the poetry magazine PN Review, where she was co-ordinating editor.

Her first book, a biography of the writer Sylvia Townsend Warner, was published in 1989 and won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize for ‘a writer of growing stature’ under the age of 35. She has since published biographies of Fanny Burney and Robert Louis Stevenson and edited works by Stevenson and Warner. She writes short stories for radio and publication and was runner-up for the V.S.Pritchett prize for short fiction in 2008. Her latest book is a mixture of biography and criticism, Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World.

Claire has taught English at the Universities of Manchester and Oxford and creative writing at Columbia University in New York City. She has appeared on radio and television and writes regularly for the literary press on both sides of the Atlantic, reviewing books, films, plays and exhibitions.

She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2006.

Reviews

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1840, Lord William Russell, a minor aristocrat, "aged and respected", was discovered with his throat slashed, lying on a blood-soaked mattress. These were unsettling, challenging times in London. There was "...the change taking place in the disposition of the common people toward 'all men in power'." "If a person like Lord William was not safe in his bed than who was?"

The working class in London was becoming more literate. The latest novels, often sensational works of fiction "...glamorized vice and made heroes of criminals...". New novels were often serialized in magazines. "Felon Literature" made atrocious crime romantic and glamorous. One such novel was "Jack Sheppard" written in 1839 by William Harrison Ainsworth. The real Jack Sheppard was an 18th Century thief, burglar and pickpocket who escaped from prison numerous times before going to the gallows. Ainsworth's novel depicted diminutive Jack as a hero of sorts. Stage versions of Ainsworth's novel were many and varied. The better dramatizations were viewed by the "educated classes" despite "the very scenery of revolting spectacles and deeds". Different versions existed since copyright laws did not protect authors from plagiarists. Many Londoners crowded into theaters again and again to view the exploits of the notorious Jack.

On to the death of Lord William Russell. Was this crime in any way connected to the "Jack Sheppard phenomenon"? Who slashed Lord William's carotid artery yet left no blood splatter on the walls or curtains? Why were few valuables stolen? Surprisingly, the sensational crime was closely followed, and updates given to Lord Melbourne to be relayed to a young Queen Victoria!

"Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens's London" by Claire Harman was a fascinating, thoroughly researched tome discussing a "moral panic", the effect of a form of entertainment as a catalyst for heinous crime committed by impressionable juveniles.

Thank you First to Read-Penguin Random House and Claire Harman for the opportunity to read and review "Murder by the Book".

[Valerity (Val) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murder by the Book: The Crime That Shocked Dickens’s London

This book is set in 1840’s London and starts out discussing the murder of Lord William Russell in his Norfolk Street home after he retires to bed for the night to do some reading. He is found the next morning by his servant with his head gaping open from the blow of an ax which has been left nearby. There is evidence of coins and a watch taken, among other things. Lord William had previously complained of a locket with his late wife’s picture inside going missing, that he carried all the time. A doctor is sent for, along with the police, and an investigation is begun. There is also a running commentary with certain authors of the day such as William Ainsworth and Charles Dickens about a couple of their books involving criminal characters, and whether or not they encourage people to commit crimes after reading the books or seeing them acted in plays, as some folks have claimed. Kind of like the debate about violent movies and video games today, and whether they play a part in people committing crimes later after viewing them.

The book is very detailed and gives a lot of connected side information to kind of flesh out the story from just the actual murder. There is also a lot of supposition of various ways the crime might have happened, and who else might have been involved also. It turned out to be a decent true crime book for this time period. My thanks for the advance electronic copy that was provided by NetGalley, author Claire Harman, and the publisher for my fair review.

RATED: 3.5/5 Stars

Also posted on my BookZone blog:
https://wordpress.com/post/bookblog20...

[K.J. Charles]

A shortish but very detailed account of the murder of Lord William Russell by his valet, and how it tied into the Jack Sheppard craze. I suspect your response to this will be entirely predicated on whether you just went "Amazing!" or "Who?" I found it fascinating, with absolutely masses of detail and specificity, but I am a Victorianerd, so I would. (I am also grateful that it acknowledges and even explains just how bad Jack Sheppard is because I've never been able to get past page 3, jfc.)

BTW the author goes on at some length about how hot Harrison Ainsworth was (not her opinion, that of the time) and I did a google image search and all I can say is: disappointing.

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good for Victorian true crime fans, I was somewhat disappointed that the 'literary' hook much in evidence in the blurb is more of a red herring: Dickens and Thackeray are mentioned but feel shoehorned in, and without them an already short book would have been reduced to something more like a pamphlet.

There is much detail uncovered here as an aristocratic master is murdered and his Swiss valet arrested, but it feels staid rather than gripping, and even the trial scenes somehow fail to be rendered dramatically. Harman concludes by asking questions that remain unanswered, suggesting something perhaps more sexual in the case but, without evidence, can't go much further.

So this is meticulous in recounting evidenced details about the murder, police investigation and sentence - but it ends up feeling a bit slight.

Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via NetGalley.

[Sandysbookaday (taking a step back for a while) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I dnf this at 30%

It was unbelievably boring and I found myself tuning out from listening to it.

Onto more interesting books . . .

[Jill H. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Am I the only person who thought that this book was sleep-inducing boring? The author's purpose was to to tie the murder of a member of the aristocracy to the type of books that were being written at the time....but was weak, not fully developed, and proved nothing. I guess the only other comment I have is that I actually finished it!!

[Dannii Elle · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is early in the morning on May 6th, 1840. London has yet to properly shake off the shackles of the night but already the servants are awake and attending to their duties. Lord Russell's house is no different, only he will not be rising from his slumber to witness them. He will momentarily be found in bed, with his throat slit from ear to ear, and it is this discovery that will spark one of the most notorious murder cases to plague Victorian London, involving the disparate likes of royalty, infamous literary figures, and every shifty street urchin for miles around.

This historical murder case is intriguing in its details but more so with the figures it involves. It is almost surreal to see the names of Dickens and Thackery adorn these pages, so surely have I built up alternative figures for them, from reading their abundant fictional words. It is also fascinating to see how this one murder affected both the literary and publishing world, at large. I will not divulge exactly how, but the potential merging of fact with fiction added another layer to this already convoluted tale.

The only mar in my reading experience was the slight waning of interest that ensued, once the majority of the facts about this case were revealed. The trial that follows was lengthy and of slightly less overall appeal than the initial, more sensational, segments. Nonetheless, this remains both an intriguing murder and case, and the turbulence in the brief historical time it covers should not be overlooked or forgotten.

[Paula Bardell-Hedley · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Who would want to butcher in his sleep this unobtrusive minor aristocrat, with his afternoons at Brooks’s and his restrained widower habits?”

I’m not overfond of airports or aeroplanes – in fact, I would describe myself as having mild aviophobia – so tend, when flying, to struggle concentrating on a book for any length of time. I therefore take care always to slip something moderately light (in a literary sense) into my bag before leaving home in hope of distracting myself from squealing children, big-boned neighbours, unexpected turbulence and other minor irritants likely to arise at 40,000 feet.

Returning last week from Cyprus, I opted to read Murder by the Book after seeing it recommended in The Guardian’s: The 50 biggest books of autumn 2018, where it was described as focusing on a “killer’s claim to have been inspired by a sensational novel, and the debate about fiction that ensued.” Perfect. An authentic whodunnit with an added literary twist: just the thing to assuage frightful, in-flight thoughts of plummeting out of the sky.

I started reading shortly before take-off and was pleased to discover the award-winning biographer, Claire Harman had created an undemanding but engrossing historical account that read like a thriller.

On the morning of 6th May 1840, a housemaid discovered her elderly master at home in bed with his throat slit so deeply his head was all but severed. Suicide was at first suspected, but it quickly became apparent the police were investigating a savage murder.

Lord William Russell was the third and youngest son of the Marquess of Tavistock, whose beloved wife, Lady Charlotte Villiers, had died some thirty years previously. He lived alone (but for three servants) in a modest property in London’s upmarket Mayfair and was familiar to those who frequented the great salons of Holland House and Gore House, the Royal Academy and Buckingham Palace itself.

“This is really too horrid!”
(Queen Victoria)

From royalty to the most impoverished ragamuffin, Londoners were enthralled by every gory detail of Russell’s murder. It also provoked intense debate about censorship and in particular, a work of fiction: Jack Sheppard by William Harrison Ainsworth - when the suspected murderer was revealed to have read the novel before committing this apparently motiveless crime. Leading writers of the day, among them Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray were dragged into the controversy, and it seemed that literature itself had been put on trial.

Collating much previously unpublished information, Harman shows how a murderer can become a celebrity. In addition to the main narrative, she helpfully provides an addendum, Unanswered Questions, in which she re-examines evidence, discusses motive and raises several intriguing questions. She also, in a chapter entitled Persons of Interest, supplies brief biographical information on all the people connected with the case.

So, did Murder by the Book divert my mind from more immediate thoughts? Happily, I can report that it served its function well: I made it from Larnaca to Manchester without going into meltdown or publicly revealing my inner wuss.

“[…] such a wound could never have been inflicted casually; the knife must have been forced down hard, as on to a recalcitrant Sunday roast.”

Many thanks to Viking for providing an advance review copy of this title.

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

A slice of Victorian true crime. In 1840 Lord William Russell, an aging aristocrat was murdered in his bed in his London home. His throat was cut. There was a police investigation and sensational press coverage. Lots of people were interviewed and it was concluded that it was an inside job. Russell’s valet Francois Courvoisier was arrested, tried, convicted and executed with a public hanging watched by an estimated fifty thousand people. It all sounds fairly unremarkable but Harman picks out some unusual aspects to the case.
At the public execution were Dickens and Thackeray. Thackeray was not yet well known. It had a profound effect on both authors. Thackeray had nightmares for weeks and both began to campaign against such public spectacles. Their influence had an effect on the debates and eventually led to the end of public executions. Thackeray wrote an article called “Going to see a man hanged” and here is an sample of it;
“This is the 20th of July and I may be permitted for my part to declare that, for the last fourteen days, so salutary has the impression of the butchery been upon me, I have had the man’s face continually before my eyes: that I can see Mr Ketch at this moment, with an easy air, take the rope from his pocket; that I feel myself ashamed and degraded at the brutal curiosity which took me to that brutal sight: and I pray to Almighty God to cause this disgraceful sin to pass from among us and to cleanse our land from blood.”
It took until 1868 to end public executions.
The other interesting aspect of this was the debate at the time about the effect of a book and whether it could lead to copycat crimes and criminality. In the early 1830s William Ainsworth had written a book about the highwayman Dick Turpin. It was a runaway success and it is where we get most of our myths about Turpin from. In 1839 Ainsworth wrote a follow up about another eighteenth century outlaw entitled “Jack Sheppard”. It was again highly sensationalised and the villain of the piece was mostly heroic, despite being hanged at the end. Officialdom was generally badly portrayed. The book was again a sensation and was very cheaply reproduced. It was also turned into a play, or rather lots of plays. Each theatre put on its own version and added more sensation and pathos. Very cheap theatre versions meant that very wide sections of the populace were able to attend and not just the middle classes. A debate was started by those who felt the populace should not be subjected to this sort of thing. The newspapers soon found people who claimed to have committed crimes as a result of seeing the play. There was a particularly gruesome murder in Jack Sheppard where a throat was cut during a burglary, similar to William Russell’s death. After the conviction Courvoisier made several varying confessions. One of them indicated he had been influenced by Jack Sheppard. This was seized on by the press and Ainsworth found himself attacked on several sides for causing crimes. There are parallels with a number of modern books.
This is well researched and outlines some problems with the investigation as well as some of the debates that arose around popular fiction and public hangings

[♥ Sandi ❣ · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25 stars Thank you to Penguin's First to Read and Alfred A. Knopf for allowing me to read and review this book. Published March 26, 2019. (First publication October 25, 2018)

This is the true crime revision of the death of the British aristocrat Lord William Russell. He was killed in his bed, in London in 1840. The book goes on to solve the crime. However, in the interim, the author goes on to illustrate the beginnings of the 'Newgate novels', which was the birth of the fiction crime novel. These novels spoke to and about the working class man but also romanticized crime and violence. It was through this process that Lord Williams killer was ultimately caught, as his killers' inspiration and method were taken from a Newgate novel.

I found this to be a very unusual read for a non-fiction book. For a true crime story, from the mid-1800s, to read like a fictional history is unique. The language that the author used was more true to that time period than to today's works and for me took a little time to settle into. Once seated into the book I felt it read very well.

[Nancy Oakes]

It is extremely rare that this happens, but quite frankly I was left totally unimpressed by this book because in my opinion, it fails to deliver what it promises. I kept waiting for it but we never quite got there.

I'm going to read it again, to make sure I haven't missed anything, but as of now, meh.

[Kirsty ❤️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a true crime novel focusing on the death of Lord William Russell. There's an interesting thread about whether media can lead to real life crime, something still in discussion today with violence and computer games. 

It's a short book so I think there is scope to really dig deeper into this element. There were a lot of characters in this book which I found hard to follow. It's not a bad book but I think just not one for me. 

[Daisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like The Maul and the Pear Tree this is the true story of a murder nearing 200 years ago and with both there is scant evidence remaining and so both look to fill the pages with a tangential study of the society these crimes occurred in. The crime here in this case is the brutal murder of a wealthy, well-connected man, found in his bed with his throat slit, the victim of his valet.

Here the link is made between popular potboiler novels of the time (you see the pun in the title now – cue Radio 4 comedy smug chortle) and the rise in crime particularly among the youth. It was the analogue version of the ‘video games make kids violent’ argument. Chief culprit was the now forgotten (and for good reason, his books seem unreadable) William Harrison Ainsworth who wrote Jack Sheppard , a book peppered with street slang that follows a group of ne’er do wells who steal and trick and murder their way through life. To say it was a phenomenon is an understatement sales of the book were unprecedented and there were several versions of it playing in London simultaneously. As with all things, the initial hype, the huge success meant that Ainsworth was feted by the great and good of the literary establishment. Dickens, for one, on his way up the career ladder courted Ainsworth’s friendship. But equally as with all things, once something becomes too popular or the wrong type of people start to enjoy it, it loses its cache and so as quickly as they had flocked to him, Ainsworth’s acolytes deserted him. Dickens at one point happy to have Oliver Twist mentioned as being of the same ilk as Ainsworth’s tales, makes numerous rewrites to distance the works from each other. Reports are made of young gangs committing crimes and claiming upon their arrest that they had seen Jack Shepperd and that had influenced them to do it (clearly the police never considered that off-laying guilt was a tactic of those arrested who don’t want to pay for their crimes).

The link of all these literary antics with our murder is that of course the murderer had read and told others he’d enjoyed the Ainsworth book. All mildly interesting but the more interesting aspect that Harman brings up in her introduction but never really expands upon is the fear of their servants the gentry were starting to develop. I was keen to know why, how did it manifest? But Harman just states they were starting to be fearful and leaves it at that. She does the usual true crime thing of suggesting that maybe the valet wasn’t guilty (a tough sell seeing as he admitted it) but she is very half-hearted about it and to be honest her reasons are so flimsy that not even his own mother could take hope from them. She also shoe horns in the current craze for assuming every crime has unwanted sexual advances at its core, as far as I recall largely because the victim was in bed in his nightgown when he was killed. In the end she seems to realise it’s a non-argument and settles for a vague hint that he may have been helped by someone. The gods were on our side when Harman told her careers advisor she wanted to be a writer and not a police officer.

Not a bad book, just very mediocre and left me with a sense that she focussed on the aspect that needed least research and used most surmising rather than dig into the more interesting master/servant relationship.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I love historical true crime, this book was something of a mixed bag for me. It begins with the discovery, on the morning of Wednesday, 6th May, 1840, of a murder. Lord William Russell is found in his bed, his throat cut, on a wealthy, seemingly safe, Mayfair street. Although Lord William was a younger son, so not as successful ,or influential, as other members of his family; he was wealthy and well known. Widowed, with only two of his seven children, still alive, he had spent much time abroad and had returned to London to retire.

Without doubt, Lord William’s murder created a sensation, and more than a little panic. That an elderly, quiet and respectable man could have been killed, in his own home, in such a wealthy area, made others worried that they could suffer the same fate. This book looks at the crime, the investigation, the trial and the aftermath. However, Claire Harman, also looks at the influence of ‘Newgate novelists,’ on events. These are sensationalist books, often made into plays, by authors such as William Harrison Ainsworth, who wrote, “Roodwood,” and “Jack Sheppard,” about a notorious criminal.

Although I found both the crime element, and the literary one, interesting, it did feel a little as though she was fleshing out the true crime section of the book. As well as Ainsworth, she discusses other authors, such as Dickens and Thackeray and there are some particularly interesting passages, concerning Dickens and the aftermath of the trial. However, overall, this doesn’t quite manage to succeed as a true crime novel, simply because there is not quite enough depth. That said, it was still an enjoyable read. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.
Rated 3.5 stars.

[Jessica Woodbury · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an interesting story here, but the way it's put together is a bit misleading for readers. There is a murder at its center, but this is not going to be a book about hunting down a killer or solving a mystery. The beginning of the book gives this impression but the actual real story doesn't deliver on it. Instead, the story here is about the rise of hysteria around one novel (William Harrison Ainsworth's JACK SHEPPARD) and the crime wave it allegedly inspired. The murder of Lord William Russell is one of the most serious crimes and certainly the one that held the public interest given the high profile of the victim. But it's not exactly the best example to dwell on (the connection back to Ainsworth's story is tenuous), it's just the best known of many crimes that people claimed were inspired by the story.

I wish Harman had taken a bigger look here, if this murder were just one chapter of a larger story rather than its center, I think the glue would have held together better across the book. We get to dive into how this wave impacted several writers, including Dickens, whose OLIVER TWIST was put into the same category as Ainsworth's novel by many much to his chagrin, but it still feels like there's a lot left unsaid here.

Societal hysteria around media that makes people commit violent acts is a fascinating phenomenon that still continues today and I would have really enjoyed a deeper dive. Russell's murder alone is not enough for an entire work and distracts from the central questions left mostly unexamined.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Early in the morning of Wednesday, 6 May 1840, on an ultra-respectable Mayfair street one block to the east of Park Lane, a footman called Daniel Young answered the door to a panic-stricken young woman, Sarah Mancer, the maid of the house opposite. Fetch a surgeon, fetch a constable, she cried: her master, Lord William Russell, was lying in bed with his throat cut.

Murder by the Book has such an interesting premise: A burglary that ended with the gruesome murder of an upper-class gent in his own bed is ultimately blamed, by the tried and condemned murderer himself, on a novel that seemed to glorify the devil-may-care lifestyle of the rapscallion vagabond thief. Apparently while researching a previous book on Charlotte Brontë, noted biographer Claire Harman kept coming across references to this shocking murder and its ties to the Victorian literary world; and while the concept and the details are, indeed, intriguing enough, Harman doesn't quite create a rewarding read out of the material. This book feels both too dense and too shallow; there are too many names and we don't get to know any of the people behind them well; there are too many small (and insignificant) details and frequent conjecture; and it all comes across as a little dull. Excellently researched, not satisfyingly executed. (Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.)

So much had been written about the contagion of Ainsworth's novel, so many column inches had been expended on quantifying the evil impact of the theatrical and the broadside versions and the shows at the penny gaffs, that the public had got used to seeing Ainsworth's book blamed for a sudden and steep increase in petty criminality, but having responsibility for a murder placed at its door took criticism of the book into a different stratum.

It was interesting to read of the rise of both literacy and the accessibility of cheap reading material in Victorian London, and subsequently, novelists' quest to feed the demand for exciting reads. One trend was to novelise true crime in the “flash” vernacular of lower-class criminals, and the most popular novel to appear in this vein was William Harrison Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard: about a charming thief who uses his wits to keep one step ahead of the law and the gallows. Anauthorised theatrical adaptations of Ainsworth's story soon followed (which drove book sales, so he didn't really mind), and cheap penny dreadfuls sensationalised the basic plot even further. When criminals – from child pickpockets to a mentally ill man who tried to assassinate Queen Victoria – began to cite Jack Sheppard as the inspiration for their acts, it was hard to lay all the blame at Ainsworth's feet: he took a true story and made a good yarn out of it; many others took the story even further, making a popular folk hero out of a character who ultimately slit the throat of a victim as she lay in her own bed. Newspapers were filled with letters and articles denouncing the bad influence of these types of stories (the type of denunciations that would eventually be repeated against comic books, heavy metal music, and video games), and the giants of the literary world attempted to take back control of what sorts of stories ought to reach the public. Again, all of that was interesting, but Harman goes a bit too far by trying to develop a parallel story about this debate's influence on Dickens and Thackery; two authors who seem to get shoehorned into this book at every available opportunity:

Charles Dickens, who was living nearby in Devonshire Terrace, must have followed the unfolding news with more than usual interest. He was writing a story – Barnaby Rudge – that begins with the brutal stabbing in his bed of the elderly Reuban Haredale, by an undiscovered intruder. Life, it seemed, was imitating art. And at his desk in Great Coram Street in Bloomsbury, the young illustrator and journalist William Makepeace Thackery was bothered by the noise of the news-seller's cries outside: “Here is a man shouting out We shall have this Lord William Russell murder,” he wrote to his mother, “a nuisance and so it is the stupid town talks of nothing else.” Little did he realize how much more talk there would be in the coming months, nor how closely this crime touched his own concerns.

We see how each author reacted to the trend of using flash vernacular, we read of their interest in the murder of Lord Russell and their decisions to watch his murderer's hanging (and each of their transformations into advocates against public executions). Sure, all of this is interesting to someone who likes books about books and authors, but running in parallel to a not-very-exciting police investigation, criminal trial, and attempts to fill in an unreliable confession with conjectured facts, it all felt a bit like padding. On the one hand, it felt like padding to read that Edgar Allen Poe was delighted to meet with Charles Dickens when he came to America; that Poe was inspired by the raven in Barnaby Rudge to write his most famous poem, which is quoted at length. Yet on the other, I did find it interesting to learn that Dickens' pet raven, Grip, who served as his own inspiration, was eventually stuffed and made its way to the Free Library of Philadelphia in honour of Poe. And that must be the greatest challenge in writing this kind of a book: Harman obviously did extensive research, and she can't possibly know which bits any individual reader will find interesting; put it all in and it risks feeling padded and dull.

The murder itself – along with the ensuing investigation, trial, and incarceration/execution scenes – were of even less interest to me as presented, so I really can't call this my cuppa tea. Pity: it still seems like such a winning concept. Three stars is a rounding up.

[Bev · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lord William Russell, resident in a highly respectable Mayfair street, is found horribly murdered in his bed. His throat has been cut--nearly severing his head from his body. It doesn't take long for the suspicion of the police to rest on Russel's valet--despite the fact that the man seems wholly respectable and a calm and obedient servant. Evidence of theft is soon found and speculation is aroused that his master had caught him in the act. But the gentry are extremely unnerved by this crime--fearing that the true motive behind the murder is an unrest among the servant class; an unrest that has been growing.

But after the trial is over and Francois Benjamin Courvoisier has been found guilty, he begins writing a series of confessions--each one supposedly, finally the truth. In one of these many confessions, he puts the blame for his actions upon a popular sensation novel, Jack Sheppard. This novel has celebrated the life of an unrepentant thief who escapes justice again and again and whose story includes a dreadful murder not too unlike that of Lord Russell.

Before the gruesome murder which riveted the attention of all of London--from Queen Victoria herself to the lowliest street urchins, the novel and the many pirated theater productions which sprung up in its wake had been vilified by the press as having encouraged young people to take up thieving as a way of life. The public is even more horrified to think that a novel could incite a man to murder.

Harman has exhaustively researched her subject, that much is apparent. She gives us great detail on the time period and the literary background leading up to the "Newgate novels" as those stories which featured the criminal class in a more pleasing light were called. She also provides all of the material she could uncover relating to the murder of Lord Russell, the subsequent investigation, and trial of Courvoisier. What the book fails to do is make any substantial connection between the novel Jack Sheppard and Courvoisier's crime or between Dickens & Thackeray and the crime. Dickens and Thackeray seem to have been brought into the narrative to bulk up the literary tone, but they certainly don't have much relevance to the contention that there is a connection between this type of novel and crimes committed.

To be honest, it appears that there is much more evidence that seeing the plays had more influence on young people than the book ever did. Petty thieves who were caught would cite having gone to see a production of Jack Sheppard and while Courvoisier did mention the book, he placed more emphasis on the production he had seen as an influence. In all fairness to William Harrison Ainsworth, author of Jack Sheppard who was shamed in the newspapers for having written such a novel, most of the productions bore scant resemblance to his work and made Jack into an even bigger hero than he had intended. It seems to me that the fingers in the 1840s should have been pointing at those who were packing them in at the theaters.

Overall, an interesting look at true crime in the early Victorian period made slightly more interesting by the literary connection, though I would say that the reality of the book does not quite live up expectation of a large literary influence upon crime. It would have been more impactful if Courvoisier had claimed from the beginning that Jack Sheppard made him go on his murderous rampage. But when he produces several confessions and only brings in Jack Sheppard in the last one--and gives the book a weak reference at that--it doesn't give great credence to the thesis that such novels had any effect on morals.

First posted on my blog My Reader's Block. Please request permission before reposting portions of review. Thanks.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1840, the body of Lord William Russell was discovered in bed by his maid. His throat had been slit so severely his head was almost detached. The subsequent investigation focussed mainly on the Swiss valet who had only recently come into Russell's employ. The case was a sensation because society was in the grip of true crime fever, brought about by Ainsworth's novel on Jack Sheppard. This was an interesting tale because there are many similarities to how the media behaves today, blaming everything from heavy metal to video games for an increase in crime figures.

[Elena Hebson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was fascinating, although the crime itself was somewhat gruesome. The author did an excellent job of showing how the crime was influenced by and influenced different parts of Victorian society and culture. It was particularly interesting to see how well known authors such as Thackeray and Dickens reacted, and how their careers were affected.

[BAM doesn’t answer to her real name · Rating 3 out of 5]

I know I only gave this read *** but I’m really glad I read it because it proves that the law has been trying to place blame for crime on what we read for centuries.

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

A disappointing read. The narrator read this as if he was acting in a play, unnecessarily inflecting over-exaggerated voices and tones. Notes and narratives were quoted extensively, sometimes in French, which served no purpose and bogged down the story. It felt like the heart of this could have been a novella and so there was just so much extra here that was downright boring. Most interesting part (as other reviewers have mentioned) are the musings on a possibly sexual motive for the murder - but that comes at the end and is too little, too late.

[Bobbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this nonfiction book from the Victorian era. I have often enjoyed true crime books and this one was so interesting especially with references to Charles Dickens, William Thackeray and others.

[Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Murder Revisited:
The horrific 1840 murder of Lord William Russel of Mayfair, London was quickly solved and the culprit caught albeit with naught but circumstantial evidence.
W.H. Ainsworth’s series of “Jack Sheppard” (the romanticized ‘criminal hero’) stories were already thought to be causing a wave of crime in London at that time and in the end it was also blamed for Lord Russel’s brutal murder. This is one of those (solved) whodunit stories that leaves one wondering whodunit?
Perhaps the author intends for the reader to draw a comparison with today’s notion that violent video games/movies & TV shows can possibly lead to the same in society. At least something to ponder.
I must also add that the title of the book and the cover is completely different from the one I have in hand. "Murder by the Book: The Crime that Shocked Dickens' London"Hardback: ISBN 978-0-525-52039-9

[Fran Blake · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting story, but not developed enough. Lots of famous authors appear in these pages, but somehow the book feels almost like an outline.

[Merit · Rating 3 out of 5]

Murder by the Book tries to be a whodunit (briefly), an exploration of William Ainsworth's Jack Sheppard, and an analysis of the intersection of pop culture and murder. The murder mystery element is not the strongest element and I would have preferred more information about 'how' it shocked London, and the far-reaching implications.

Also, while Harman name drops "Dickens's London," and the bulk of the book occurs over 1839 and 1840, the link to 'Dickens's London' is tenuous (and what is it, precisely??). Perhaps if Harman had developed the cultural and societal impetus for the derided Newgate novel (books that glamourised criminals) and how that shadowed Dickens' early career, before his later derision, it would have been more compelling. Generally, I would have preferred the analysis to be deeper than what was ultimately presented in a hodge podge manner, darting from topic to topic.

The best chapters explored the pop culture phenomenon of Jack Sheppard, an 18th C thief later immortalised by Ainsworth, and how people were quick to blame a book for reason petty, and later, more serious crimes. Back in the 1830s, authors were not entitled to any copyright fees if someone decided to put on a play - as happened repeatedly in 1839 with Jack Sheppard. In one such play, it also had a number of musical numbers, one using street and thieving cant. Harman said such outrageous language was similar to modern day rap. This lead to a moment where I stared into the camera like in the Office, because this book was published in 2018 and rap is not the most 'controversial' genre these days.

[Siobhan Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you like Victorian literature and obscure murders, this is the book for you! This account of the murder of Lord William Russell tied Russell's murder back to a novel of the time, Jack Sheppard Clearly the whole "video games cause violence" thing has been going on for some time, because once upon a time it was "sensational novels cause violence."

I thought Harman did an interesting job connecting Russell's murder and the novel together. However, while I understand why it was tied back to Charles Dickens (Dickens was a contemporary and friend of the novel's author, William Harrison Ainsworth), I found that there was just too much time devoted to Dickens considering that he was not really a central character in this plot. I think that Harman wasn't 100% sure of her audience, and went into detail about Dickens to give some added context for people who might not know already. However, since I already had a fairly good idea about how/why Dickens got his start in writing, this just felt like info I didn't really need.

The rest of the book was fairly well done - some parts of it dragged, while others seemed rushed, but I get that Harman was working with limited resources. When a murder case is over 150 years old, there's lots of information about some parts of it and very limited information about other parts.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting social study of the role of fiction and media in the influence on public morals and motivation. A crime is committed and the criminal was supposedly influenced and corrupted by the fame and glorification of the notorious Jack Sheppard (a model for Hogarth's apprentice's progress etchings) in novels and plays. Whether this was truly the case is debatable, however the impact on London society and its youth in particular, is not.

The tale of the conviction seems to be, in our modern view, a litany of lost opportunities and biases with a very unconvincing result. The final chapter of this story is appropriately titled Unanswered Questions.

Apart from the true crime aspect, this account also details the interesting involvement of the young Dickens and Thackeray, with the former quickly disassociating himself and his novel Oliver Twist from the nefarious Newgate Novel label. This event also strongly influenced Dickens and others in their opposition to public executions and the death penalty in general.

Overall an interesting slice of Victorian history and the nascent days of crime solving.

[Books I'm Not Reading · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suppose this would be classified as a True Crime book, but it felt much more like a mystery novel at times since this crime took place in the Victorian era. It also has such great discussion about the mob mentality and how books can impact society. Really fascinating.

[Raya Mackenzie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great mix of true crime and literary history! This book really appealed to the English/History major in me. How does literature impact society or reflect it? Here is one fascinating case study!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an historical true crime novel, so may not be to the taste of those who prefer fictionalised plots and characterisations. However, I found it well-researched and intriguing. I have previously read and enjoyed ”The Maul and the Pear Tree”, the late Queen of Crime P.D. James’s excellent foray (with T.A. Critchley) into similar non-fiction territory - in their case the 1811 Ratcliff Highway murders, which occurred some three decades prior to the murder of Lord William Russell in 1840, which is the subject of this book. Despite the difference in time period, there are clear similarities between the crimes. Investigation methods and the workings of the criminal justice system remained fairly static until the end of the 19th century, by which time more sophisticated detective divisions and forensic techniques had begun to develop, in the wake of the notorious 1888 Whitechapel series of murders attributed to an unknown criminal referred to in the media as “Jack the Ripper”. Both the Ratcliffe Highway and Russell murders generated a frenzy of panic and intrigue in the London populace at the times they occurred, and thus both are examples of investigations fuelled by speculation in the print media and complicated by the offering of sizeable government and private rewards prior to the perpetrator being apprehended.
Harman’s investigation of the Russell murder is made all the more intriguing by her interpretation of some of the literary undercurrents and connections to the murder.
The individual ultimately convicted of Russell’s murder claimed to have been inspired to the act after reading and viewing a theatrical adaptation of William Harrison Ainsworth’s somewhat glamourised retelling of the life of criminal Jack Shepard. Ainsworth was a contemporary of William Thackeray (“Vanity Fair”) and the up-and-coming Charles Dickens. Dickens also delved into the “Newgate (after the prison of the same name Novel” genre, which tended to romanticise the lives and exploits of criminals, in his early novel “Oliver Twist”. The revelations out of the Russell murder trial generated a fierce debate in London literary circles over the morality of depicting criminals as heroes or figures of mainstream entertainment. This put me in mind of a similar debate following the portrayal of 1980s-1990s era Melbourne gangsters, drug barons and hitmen in the popular television series “Underbelly”, which aired in Australia in 2008, by which time most of the “characters” had either died untimely violent deaths or were in prison.
All in all, a thought provoking and stimulating non-fiction read, about a crime of which I had previously been unaware and the wider social context within which existed several long-dead author’s whose work I have admired.