Victorian Studies in Scarlet: Murders and Manners in the Age of Victoria

by Richard D. Altick

"Of course I do not wish for murders," a character in a nineteenth-century novel remarks, "but when there is one, why, I like it. It is human nature." Human nature it is indeed, and murder has always fascinated mankind. Never, however, was the absorption more tireless, never was the shudder of terror closer to enjoyment than in the Victorian era. In the first chapters, Mr. Altick examines the Victorian delight in murder as a social phenomenon. The remainder of the book is constructed around classic murder cases that afford a vivid perspective on the way people lived--and died--in the Age of Victoria. From the beginning of the age, homicide was a national entertainment. Penny broadsheets hawked in the streets highlighted the most gruesome features of crimes; newspapers recounted the most minute details, from the discovery of the body to the execution of the criminal. Real-life murders were quickly adapted for the gaslight melodrama and the bestselling novels of the "Newgate" and "sensation" schools. Murder scenes and celebrities were the most popular exhibits at Madame Tussaud's waxworks and in the touring peepshows and marionette entertainments. Murder, in fact, was a crimson thread running through the whole fabric of Victorian life. By tracing this thread in "not too solemn a spirit," Mr. Altick has written a book that will delight and inform all who are interested in social history, as well as that great number who relish true murder stories.

Genres: History, True Crime, Nonfiction, Victorian, Crime, Research, 19th Century

356 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Richard Altick was Regent’s Professor of English, Emeritus, at The Ohio State University and the author of numerous important works in the field of literary studies.

Reviews

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wry and smirking Altick does it again. Victorian Studies in Scarlet is a rundown of some of the most notorious crimes of the Victorian Age. Altick is a pleasure to read. He often gives the impression the reader is being let in on a little secret. Skip the chapters on yellow journalism and the Victorian mind, unless you want enlightening about the origin of the term ‘penny dreadful’ and theories on their role in improving English literacy.

[Brenda Clough · Rating 2 out of 5]

A compendium of many of the lurid crimes of the Victorian era, with side excursions into their effect on fiction and culture. There are so many that you are skimming through most of them.

[Leslie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What Altick is really interested in here is how and why, for so many Victorians, murder played "a part in their imaginative lives that was far out of proportion to its actual incidence." He traces the roots of the Victorian fascination with murder (and hence with ours, because we're just as fascinated with it as they were) from Gothic fiction, broadsides, ballads, and pamphlets through the development of the popular press and the vogue for sensation novels in mid-century. People at all levels of society turned to stories, both real and fictional, of murder.

By examining the Victorian fascination with murder, of course, he also sheds light on our own, because we're just as fascinated with it as they were. A glance at our either our entertainment or our news is enough to prove that suggestion. And, of course, the lines between entertainment and news are blurrier than ever; big murder trials feature on entertainment "news" shows, and serial killers compete with reality show stars for the front page of supermarket tabloids. More people can identify famous serial killers than can name their Member of Parliament. In this, as in so much else, despite our use of "Victorian" as a pejorative, we are very much like them. Altick doesn't moralise about that fascination, although he points out that stories of murder are often turned to moralising purposes; instead, he regards it with interest and an amusement born of recognition.