The Oxford Book of Villains

by John Mortimer (editor)

"The world may be short of many things," writes John Mortimer in the introduction to this marvelous volume, "rain forests, great politicians, black rhinos, saints, and caviar, but the supply of villains is endless. They are everywhere, down narrow streets and in brightly lit office buildings
and parliaments, dominating family life, crowding prisons and law courts, and providing plots for most of the works of fiction that have been composed since the dawn of history." Now, in the ultimate rogue's gallery, Mortimer (best known as the author of Rumpole of the Bailey ) has captured an
arresting collection of crooks, murderers, seducers, con men, traitors, and tyrants--the world's greatest villains, both fictional and real.
Here readers who love mayhem (at least in print) will find villainy in all its shapes and sizes, from pickpockets and pirates to tyrants and financiers. Billy the Kid rubs shoulders with Mac the Knife, Captain Hook with Casanova, Caligula with Rasputin, Fagin with Dr Fu-Manchu. There are
master criminals (such as Dr No, Raffles, or Professor Moriarty), minor miscreants (such as P.G. Wodehouse's Ferdie the Fly, "who, while definitely not of the intelligentsia, had the invaluable gift of being able to climb up the side of any house you placed before him, using only toes, fingers and
personal magnetism"), and bumbling incompetents (such as Peter Scott, a Briton who in 1980 made seven attempts to kill his wife, without her once noticing that anything was wrong). We meet the soft-spoken murderer Armstrong, a gentle small-town lawyer, whose manners were so good that when he passed
his intended victim a poisoned scone he uttered the immortal words, "Excuse my fingers." And we listen as Marlowe, in Heart of Darkness , remembers Kurtz's report to the Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs--"This was the unbounded power of eloquence--of words--of burning noble words"--and
the scrawled postscript, added much later, that hit Marlowe "like a flash of lightning in a serene 'Exterminate all the brutes!'" In addition, there is an account of the death of Billy the Kidd, written by Jorge Luis Borges, and another of the tax evasion trial of Al Capone, by Damon Runyon.
Mortimer has in fact ranged high and low, taking excerpts from the greats of literature--from the Bible, Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton (where Lucifer has all the best lines, such as "Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n"), Moliere, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, Mark Twain, and
many others--and from the leading detective and mystery writers--including Eric Ambler, Dick Francis, Wilkie Collins, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, Ian Fleming, Angela Carter, and Arthur Conan Doyle.
Attractive scoundrels and incompetent rogues, calculating murderers and unscrupulous swinders pack these pages with a richness and variety that will by turns delight, surprise and chill.

Genres: Essays, Fiction, Reference

444 pages, Hardcover

First published September 17, 1992

About the author

John Clifford Mortimer was a novelist, playwright and former practising barrister. Among his many publications are several volumes of Rumpole stories and a trilogy of political novels, Paradise Postponed, Titmuss Regained and The Sound of Trumpets, featuring Leslie Titmuss - a character as brilliant as Rumpole. John Mortimer received a knighthood for his services to the arts in 1998.

Series:
Rumpole of the Bailey
Rapstone Chronicles

Reviews

[Jim Hunnicutt]

This is an excellent assembly of authors and storytellers who have immortalized one of the crucial characters in literature- the villain. Whether portrayed as pure evil, the lecherous crook, a con man or a cold-blooded killer, the villain has been used across cultures to heighten suspense and mystery. This anthology covers writers from Milton to Chauncer and must be enjoyed, hopefully not under the dim moonlight.

[Lynda]

Read this one entry at a time, over many months, because one villainous encounter a day is enough. Then passed it along to my sister for Xmas. You'll meet some old favorites and discover new leads for new encounters to follow up.

[Granny]

I was disappointed in this book, which was particularly painful to me since the author wrote the delicious "Rumpole of the Bailey" books.

The introduction was a delight, very witty and very much in Mortimer's tongue in cheek style. But; to my surprise, most of the book is excerpts of poetry and other writings on the subject of villainy. After a while, I found that overwhelming. I was expecting short essays from Mortimer, instead I am forced to shift gears from one poet's style to the other, with precious little of Mortimer's dark insights and darker humor. The book sometimes felt like pieces of poetry and essays cut out, scattered on the floor and put together randomly. It is not is all like the other "Oxford Books of..." that I have read.

All in all, a disappointment.