A Very British Murder

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Souden, David; Dolman, Brett; foreword by HRHThePrinceofWales (2008). The Royal Palaces of London. Merrell Publishers. ISBN 978-1858944234. In the years following the First World War, people wanted leisure reading to numb, not to stimulate, their capacity for experiencing horror.

A Very British Murder by Lucy Worsley, review - The Telegraph

If you are interested in Crime, both as fiction and as reality, especially in how it affects the public psyche, then you will certainly find a lot to appreciate here. Worsley describes the fact that hangings and murders provided entertainment to the public, even so much so that the people bought trinkets as souvenirs. Continuing on with the entertainment theme, Worsley introduces sensational journalism, the theatre, Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, a puppet show, and detective fiction. In addition, she talks about the founding of the organized police force, detective work, ‘Penny Bloods’ (the precursor to crime fiction), poisonings, and forensic science.Snobbery with Violence and The Dangerous Edge of Things (on the decline of the Golden Age detective novel) In 2016, Worsley presented the three-part documentary Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley in January and Lucy Worsley: Mozart's London Odyssey in June. [17] In September 2016, she was filming an upcoming series A Very British History for BBC Four. [18] In December she presented and appeared in dramatised accounts of the three-part BBC series Six Wives with Lucy Worsley. In 2017, she presented a three-part series entitled British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley, debunking historical views of the WarsoftheRoses, the GloriousRevolution and the BritishoccupationofIndia. [19] Wadsworth, Jo (13 July 2015). "TVhistoriangivenhonorarySussexUnidegree". Brighton and Hove News . Retrieved 20 July 2015. I was born in Reading (not great, but it could have been Slough), studied Ancient and Modern History at New College, Oxford, and I've got a PhD in art history from the University of Sussex.

A Very British Murder: The curious story of how crime was

Wintle, Angela (12 April 2013). "LucyWorsley:Myfamilyvalues". The Guardian . Retrieved 10 November 2016. Judith Flanders' The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime (2010); Rosalind Crone's Violent Victorians (2012); Matthew Sweet's Inventing the Victorians(2001) ; P. D. James' Talking about Detective Fiction (2009); and Julian Symons' Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel (1972). MiltonManor–LucyWorsley". LucyWorsley.com. Archived from theoriginal on 14 May 2014 . Retrieved 13 May 2014. LucyWorsleytouncoverreal-lifestoriesoftheBlitzinnewfilmforBBCOne". bbc.co.uk . Retrieved 1 January 2021.The same point holds for Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver, probably the most famous English spinster detective after Miss Marple. Of the 32 Miss Silver mysteries, only three appeared before 1940. 29 of them appeared on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean between 1940 and 1961, that period when, according to Worsley, Graham Greene and James Bond (one an author, one a series character) made " elderly ladies...seem completely old hat." Apparently more than a few people in the forties and fifties liked old hats. Worsley began her career as a historic house curator at MiltonManor, [4] near Abingdon, in the summer of 1995, [5] before working for the SocietyfortheProtectionofAncientBuildings. From 1996 to 2002, she was an inspector of historic buildings for EnglishHeritage in the East Midlands region. During that time, she studied the life of WilliamCavendish,1stDukeofNewcastle and wrote the English Heritage guide to his home, BolsoverCastle. In 2001, she was awarded a DPhil degree from the UniversityofSussex for a thesis on The Architectural Patronage of William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle, 1593–1676. [6] The thesis was later developed into Worsley's book Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion and Great Houses published in 2007. [7] Julian Symons' Bloody Murder remains a valuable source on crime fiction, but it is marred, in my view, by the author's determination to drive home his thesis that Golden Age detective fiction was fatally restricted by artificial conventions (the so-called "rules"), making it inevitably inferior to the "crime fiction" of modern times, with its much-heralded psychological and social realism. And P. D. James' Talking about Detective Fiction, a very brief book of about 45,000 words or so, is more problematic than Bloody Murder as a source for a general history, in my opinion.

A Very British Murder : The Story of a National Obsession A Very British Murder : The Story of a National Obsession

Also looking at crime fiction from Holmes to Christie to Sayers amongst others, this was a fascinating insight into crime and our different obsessions with it. I admittedly have not watched the television show that this is accompanies but I may have to rectify that. This book has been written to accompany a television series of the same name and does, as a consequence jump around a little in subject matter. The book begins and ends with discussion of an essay - the first being, "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" by Thomas De Quincey and finishes with an appraisal of "The Decline of the English Murder" by George Orwell. This is not really about crime, as such, although many crimes are discussed - it is about how, especially since the nineteenth century, the British began to "enjoy and consume the idea of a murder." Dolman, Brett; Lipscomb,Suzannah; Prosser, Lee (2009). Henry VIII: 500 Facts. Historic Royal Palaces. ISBN 978-1873993125. Despite the occasional imbalance in the flow, I think this book is perfect for those obsessed with the history of British Crime. Some of the material is probably familiar for the aficionado, but it will still be fun to revisit it. For someone just now developing an interest in British Crime, this book could serve as a crash course and give you lots of material to research and may send you off on a few deep dives for more detailed information. This is the second of this author's works I have read. She has an easy to read style with a slight quirkiness, reminiscent of her presentation style on TV. I haven't seen the TV programme/series on which this book was based, but can envisage it from the structure of this book and the general style in which it comes across.

Harlots,HousewivesandHeroines:A17thCenturyHistoryforGirlsatBBC4.com". Bbc.co.uk. 28 May 2012 . Retrieved 1 April 2013. Worsley a, Lucy (2001). TheArchitecturalPatronageofWilliamCavendish,firstDukeofNewcastle,1593–1676 (D.Phil. thesis) . Retrieved 1 April 2013. An interesting and enjoyable read, which I would suggest would be an ideal entry-level book for anyone looking to find out more about the history of crime fiction and its links with society. In April 2016, Worsley published her debut children's novel, Eliza Rose, about a young noble girl in a Tudor Court. [24] [25] In 2017, Worsley published a biography of JaneAusten titled Jane Austen at Home: A Biography. [26]