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Criminal trilogy #2
A Casebook of Murder
Contents The Beginnings (Gilles de Rais, Thomas Malory, The Crusades etc.); The Age of Gin (Dick Turpin, The Newgate calendar, Hanging etc.); Cannibals & Rapists (Red Barn Murder, Sarah Woodcock rape, transportation to Australia, Dignum & Cornerford etc.); Into the Age of Violence ( Burle & Hare, Jack the Ripper, Texarcana murder, the Bavarian Ripper etc.); The Age of Detection (Billoir, Ravachol, William Herschel & the discovery of fingerprints, Karl Hussman etc.); Chamber of Horrors (H. H. Holmes & Nightmare castle, Ed Gein, the Polish Ripper Moors Murder case etc).
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1969
11 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Colin Wilson
430 books1,289 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
Colin Henry Wilson was born and raised in Leicester, England, U.K. He left school at 16, worked in factories and various occupations, and read in his spare time. When Wilson was 24, Gollancz published The Outsider (1956) which examines the role of the social 'outsider' in seminal works of various key literary and cultural figures. These include Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, Hermann Hesse, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, William James, T. E. Lawrence, Vaslav Nijinsky and Vincent Van Gogh and Wilson discusses his perception of Social alienation in their work. The book was a best seller and helped popularize existentialism in Britain. Critical praise though, was short-lived and Wilson was soon widely criticized.
Wilson's works after The Outsider focused on positive aspects of human psychology, such as peak experiences and the narrowness of consciousness. He admired the humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow and corresponded with him. Wilson wrote The War Against Sleep: The Philosophy of Gurdjieff on the life, work and philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff and an accessible introduction to the Greek-Armenian mystic in 1980. He argues throughout his work that the existentialist focus on defeat or nausea is only a partial representation of reality and that there is no particular reason for accepting it. Wilson views normal, everyday consciousness buffeted by the moment, as "blinkered" and argues that it should not be accepted as showing us the truth about reality. This blinkering has some evolutionary advantages in that it stops us from being completely immersed in wonder, or in the huge stream of events, and hence unable to act. However, to live properly we need to access more than this everyday consciousness. Wilson believes that our peak experiences of joy and meaningfulness are as real as our experiences of angst and, since we are more fully alive at these moments, they are more real. These experiences can be cultivated through concentration, paying attention, relaxation and certain types of work.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 8, 2021
I really love Colin Wilson’s theories.
“In a century, the old pattern has almost ceased to be discernible. We are in an age of murders committed out of frustration, sadism, revolt—or simply boredom.”- he comes to this conclusion after writing and researching crimes throughout the centuries and it starts out with murder for business and morphs into the 20th century where he states:
“The problem raised by murder in the twentieth century is no longer a social problem; the murders in an affluent society seem to become more violent and cruel than ever before.”
There is so much packed into this book!! I couldn’t put it down!
“In a century, the old pattern has almost ceased to be discernible. We are in an age of murders committed out of frustration, sadism, revolt—or simply boredom.”- he comes to this conclusion after writing and researching crimes throughout the centuries and it starts out with murder for business and morphs into the 20th century where he states:
“The problem raised by murder in the twentieth century is no longer a social problem; the murders in an affluent society seem to become more violent and cruel than ever before.”
There is so much packed into this book!! I couldn’t put it down!
June 30, 2025
More of the same.
These crime books by Colin Wilson have a very repetitive quality to them. For those who are interested in the meat and potatoes aspect of murders throughout history, both European and American, this should satisfy them. However if you're looking for a deeper analysis into what makes these individuals tick there is very little of that to be found. Oftentimes it reads like a compendium of Wikipedia articles that offer only the bare bones of a case. Even when he lays on the details its more gruesome than informative. I've read several of his books and this will likely be my last involving crime and it's one of those books that I now regret actually buying since I highly doubt that I'll ever read it again. It's a fascinating subject but needs a degree of psychological insight to elevate it above the multitude of other crime books. Three stars is very generous a rating.
These crime books by Colin Wilson have a very repetitive quality to them. For those who are interested in the meat and potatoes aspect of murders throughout history, both European and American, this should satisfy them. However if you're looking for a deeper analysis into what makes these individuals tick there is very little of that to be found. Oftentimes it reads like a compendium of Wikipedia articles that offer only the bare bones of a case. Even when he lays on the details its more gruesome than informative. I've read several of his books and this will likely be my last involving crime and it's one of those books that I now regret actually buying since I highly doubt that I'll ever read it again. It's a fascinating subject but needs a degree of psychological insight to elevate it above the multitude of other crime books. Three stars is very generous a rating.
August 10, 2016
Colin Wilson's study of murder that I read back in 1978.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews