A Book of Remarkable Criminals

by Harry Brodribb Irving

The silent workings, and still more the explosions, of human passion which bring to light the darker elements of man's nature present to the philosophical observer considerations of intrinsic interest; while to the jurist, the study of human nature and human character with its infinite varieties, especially as affecting the connection between motive and action, between irregular desire or evil disposition and crime itself, is equally indispensable and difficult. - Wills on Circumstantial Evidence. I REMEMBER my father telling me that sitting up late one night talking with Tennyson, the latter remarked that he had not kept such late hours since a recent visit of Jowett. On that occasion the poet and the philosopher had talked together well into the small hours of the morning. My father asked Tennyson what was the subject of conversation that had so engrossed them. "Murders," replied Tennyson. It would have been interesting to have heard Tennyson and Jowett discussing such a theme. The fact is a tribute to the interest that crime has for many men of intellect and imagination. Indeed, how could it be otherwise? Rob history and fiction of crime, how tame and colourless would be the residue! We who are living and enduring in the presence of one of the greatest crimes on record, must realise that trying as this period of the world's history is to those who are passing through it, in the hands of some great historian it may make very good reading for posterity. Perhaps we may find some little consolation in this fact, like the unhappy victims of famous freebooters such as Jack Sheppard or Charley Peace.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Classics, Crime, Biography, History, Mystery

332 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1918

About the author

Harry Brodribb Irving (5 August 1870 – 17 October 1919), was a British stage actor and actor-manager; the eldest son of Sir Henry Irving and his wife Florence (née O'Callaghan), and father of designer Laurence Irving and actress Elizabeth Irving.

Reviews

[Shelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

People haven't changed since the beginning of time. Same motives, money or love, still at the forefront of malicious violence. Good writing, taking court reports and news accounts and making coherent tales of treachery and malice. The introduction was informative and good reading as well!
On a side note after reading this, I feel like we have become a lazy and illiterate society, no longer using expansive vocabulary, dumbing down our thought patterns and expressions to the least common denominator. Such a pity! When's the last time you read a book that used the word, 'compunctious' ?

[Rajiv Chopra · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent book, and very well researched. I like it because it covers the life and crimes of criminals who were all, in a way, small criminals, but each remarkable in his or her own way.

They were not all remarkable as criminals, but their life stories are remarkable, and some of them really were remarkable in the manner they turned to crime.

The book is well-written and easy to read. I found the stories to be fascinating. Many years back, I read a book on the deadliest murderers of the twentieth century. These are stories of criminals who lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and their stories are well-worth reading.

[Courtney Dixon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just ok.

Wasn't really my taste. I found it somewhat dry and boring to get through. It's well written, I was hoping for a little more wow factor.

[Doreen Petersen · Rating 3 out of 5]

All in all not a bad book. The crimes committed were all in 1800s but still a decent read.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

An early true-crime collection of real-life murder stories taking place in the second half of the 19th century. The author's style, which is occasionally long-winded, comes across as a little dated in places but otherwise he's surprisingly readable, which is mainly thanks to his enthusiasm for the subject matter. Some of the cases he retells are famous - think Charles Peace, H.H. Holmes - while others are far more obscure, and in the last third of the book he develops a real passion for small-time stories of murders in France. Mistresses and lovers conspiring to kill husbands, business associates butchering one another over money matters, that kind of thing. Although the subject matter is undeniably grim, given the era the author refuses to dwell on the bloodshed but instead offers up commentary on the character of those responsible. It's an intriguing little read.

[Patricia Farmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An adventure back in time

The author's style of writing, with these stories, takes the reader back centuries, and definitely puts you right there with the characters. Definitely a good read.

[Connie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written over one hundred years ago. Shows atrocious murders are not a new problem. discusses H. H. Holmes. Also quite a few from Europe. Reading dragged a little due to the era it was written but mostly intersting.

[Darren · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was just OK. Nothing really stood out as being particularly “remarkable” about any of the criminals. It was a let down from that perspectives. I was expecting some criminal masterminds. I don’t think any of the characters fit in the category of a mastermind.

[Miss Cat · Rating 3 out of 5]

So so

This book was pretty interesting, but very dry. I love all of the old words that I got to learn.

[George Polansky · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting collection of true crime stories that predate the 20th century.

[Sherry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Intriguing, but, for Mr, hard to follow

The style of writing is different than Whatcom used to.
Somewhat interesting stories but I just couldn't "get into" them. Sorry

[Librarian Jessie (BibliophileRoses) · Rating 2 out of 5]

A definitely different read for sure.

[Sharon Zink · Rating 4 out of 5]

A description of some crimes and the events surrounding them in the 19th century.

[Tom · Rating 2 out of 5]

“A Book of Remarkable Criminals” by Henry B. Irving

A study of true crime stories of serial killers, burgles and murderers in 19th century England, New Zealand, and France are profiled in this book originally published in 1918. Also is the story of H.H. Homes, retold in Eric Larson’s “The Devil in the White City”

[Paul Trembling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not for everybody, but if you have an interest in criminology and in history, you may well find it fascinating, as I did! Not only do you find out once notorious but now almost forgotten villains, but you also get insights into the times and cultures they lived in - not so far from ours in time, but already so different in many ways.

[Two Readers in Love]

"This classic study profiles serial killers, gentleman murderers, and every stripe of madman in between, including the case of H.H. Holmes, famously recounted in Erik Larson’s award–winning bestseller, The Devil in the White City." - Early Bird Books

Available for free in the public domain an eBook thanks to the volunteers at Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/446

[Tazar Oo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Online က ေဒါင္းလုတ္ရတဲ့အတြက္ ၀မ္းသာပါတယ္။ ဖတ္ခ်င္သူေတြဆီ ပို႔ေပးလို႔ရတယ္...။ ရာဇ၀တ္မႈမ်ားအေၾကာင္း။ က်ဴးလြန္သူ တရားခံေတြရဲ႕ စိတၱဇျဖစ္စဥ္၊ ခံစားမႈ...၊ က်ဴးလြန္ပံု.. စတာေတြကို အေသးစိတ္ေလ့လာျခင္း။ ကမၻာေက်ာ္ မႈခင္းေတြနဲ႔ တူပါတယ္...။ စိတ္ကူးယဥ္ဇာတ္လမ္းေတြထက္စာရင္ ပိုဆြဲေဆာင္မႈရွိမယ္ထင္တယ္..။

[Rabid Readers Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book as a freebie with the .mobi reader on my Blackberry. I'm a fan of true crime and had not read about any of the very interesting cases (between 1850 and 1910) before. I very much enjoyed the telling and the old fashioned morality tone and speculation of the work.

[Ams78 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very interesting book of murders committed in the late 19th century. I found it to be quite fascinating, though some passages were a bit hard to understand. There were several discussions of court proceedings as well, which were intriguing. All things considered, a very good read.

[Suzanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

All i wanted to say was it would be an idea to take a breath and use a few full stops. Couldnt carry on is I was alwaus loosing interest.

[Vishal Parashar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book. Simple language easy to understand. The author grasps attention of the readers in each case, though i found most of the cases to be from france(paris).

[Zane Sterling · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting

Definitely a very unique book. Some very interesting stories that are really different, strange and many border on the bizarre.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dry

The stories were interesting but the writing was a bit stuffy for my taste. Obviously British. It was a free download, and worth every penny

[Eric · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like watching a series of Forensic Files episodes taking place in the 19th century. I wouldn't call many of these criminals remarkable but the cases were entertaining.

[Irfan Mehdi]

i am student of criminology want to read this book...

[Lynn McClelland · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am usually the person who won't give up on a book ... I have to read it to the end. It once took me four years; the book was over 700 pages long, but four years .... In this case, however, I had to make an exception. While the author must have done quite a bit of research, the criminals described were somewhat 'unremarkable.' There wasn't anything t0 pique my interest -- nothing exciting to encourage me to continue reading. The other problem I had was the number of typos or grammatical errors. I believe this book will appeal to a specific audience, but it wasn't for me.