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The Trial of Elizabeth Cree
The year is 1880, the setting London's poor and dangerous Limehouse district, home to immigrants and criminals. A series of brutal murders has occurred, and, as Ackroyd leads us down London's dark streets, the sense of time and place becomes overwhelmingly immediate and real. We experience the sights and sounds of the English music halls, smell the smells of London slums, hear the hooves of horses on the cobblestone streets, and attend the trial of Elizabeth Cree, a woman accused of poisoning her husband but who may be the one person who knows the truth about the murders.
261 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
105 people are currently reading
2811 people want to read
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
182 books1,484 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 351 reviews
August 26, 2017
*3.5 STARS*
Late Victorian London was famous for it's thick fogs and filthy cobbled streets where one could easily get lost in the myriad alleyways of the city. However, if you were a brutal serial killer, then the fog would be of great merit!
With echoes of Jack The Ripper, fact and fiction walk hand in hand as real historical characters appear in this tale of murder most foul.
By way of the trial of Elizabeth Cree, (charged with the murder of her husband by poisoning ), the story flows effortlessly from courtroom to music hall, and out to the streets and alleyways of Limehouse. The inhabitants of this slum district are among the poorest in London, and it has more than it's fair share of criminals.
Our serial killer is nicknamed The Limehouse Golem, and as the victim count increases, numerous suspects are brought in for questioning. This begins to look like a who's who, with many famous names in the frame - Karl Marx, Dan Leno ( THE most famous music hall player ) and George Gissing ( novelist and tutor )
Peter Ackroyd leads us by the hand through Victorian London's mean streets and alleyways, so that you can almost smell those putrid thoroughfares, can almost hear the clip clop of horses hooves on the cobbled streets, and it's not difficult to see what a scary place this was - add a serial killer into the mix and you have unquestionable terror right there. The only criticism I have is that I found some of the narrative overly long, but it has wonderful atmosphere, and a neat little twist at the end.
**Soon to be released as a movie starring Bill Nighy**
*Thank you to Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for my ARC in exchange for an honest review*
Late Victorian London was famous for it's thick fogs and filthy cobbled streets where one could easily get lost in the myriad alleyways of the city. However, if you were a brutal serial killer, then the fog would be of great merit!
With echoes of Jack The Ripper, fact and fiction walk hand in hand as real historical characters appear in this tale of murder most foul.
By way of the trial of Elizabeth Cree, (charged with the murder of her husband by poisoning ), the story flows effortlessly from courtroom to music hall, and out to the streets and alleyways of Limehouse. The inhabitants of this slum district are among the poorest in London, and it has more than it's fair share of criminals.
Our serial killer is nicknamed The Limehouse Golem, and as the victim count increases, numerous suspects are brought in for questioning. This begins to look like a who's who, with many famous names in the frame - Karl Marx, Dan Leno ( THE most famous music hall player ) and George Gissing ( novelist and tutor )
Peter Ackroyd leads us by the hand through Victorian London's mean streets and alleyways, so that you can almost smell those putrid thoroughfares, can almost hear the clip clop of horses hooves on the cobbled streets, and it's not difficult to see what a scary place this was - add a serial killer into the mix and you have unquestionable terror right there. The only criticism I have is that I found some of the narrative overly long, but it has wonderful atmosphere, and a neat little twist at the end.
**Soon to be released as a movie starring Bill Nighy**
*Thank you to Random House UK, Vintage Publishing for my ARC in exchange for an honest review*
August 29, 2017
This is a marvellously macabre nineteenth century Victorian historical crime fiction. The central and strongest character is London itself, a city sharply divided by the wretched poverty of the poor and their desperately precarious lives and the well to do. The author transports us to the atmospheric streets of London, with its stench, its fogs, its bawdy houses, the theatres and the music halls. Limehouse is a district marked by its poverty, murderers are buried (covered in lime) and born here. It is the scene for a number of strange killings over a short period of time attributed to a golem, breeding intense fear in the populace and attracting intense media attention. Golem is a medieval Jewish word for an artificial being bought into existence by a magician or a rabbi. Limehouse is the kind of area where such a mythical being would appear. Famous luminaries from the time appear, such as the author George Gissing, Karl Marx and the music hall star, Dan Leno. Part of the narrative gives us the killer's diary.
The story begins with the hanging of Elizabeth Cree, Lambeth Marsh Lizzie, in April 1881 in Camberwell Prison. She was found guilty and convicted of the murder of John Cree, her husband, by poisoning. We then go back in time to learn of her life, the desperate poverty of her childhood, her tenacious ability to improve her life, her introduction to the theatre and music hall, where she is mentored by the great Dan Leno, and how she meets her husband. The string of Limehouse murders occur, apparently out of the blue, with seemingly no rhyme and reason, attributed locally to a golem, whilst a frenzy of fear runs rife through the community. Karl Marx looks into the Jewish legend of the golem. The police, courtesy of H Division, find themselves at a loss, whilst the media mock Chief Inspector Kildare. As it soon becomes clear, there is reason for the murders.....
Peter Ackroyd does an impressive job in recreating Victorian London and making it come gloriously alive, its culture, the baseness, the hard lives, the literary and philosophic swirl, and expertly incorporates leading figures of the time into the book. This and the rich characterisation makes this an irresistable read, which has now been turned into a major film starring the wonderful Bill Nighy. After reading this, I cannot wait to see it! Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.
The story begins with the hanging of Elizabeth Cree, Lambeth Marsh Lizzie, in April 1881 in Camberwell Prison. She was found guilty and convicted of the murder of John Cree, her husband, by poisoning. We then go back in time to learn of her life, the desperate poverty of her childhood, her tenacious ability to improve her life, her introduction to the theatre and music hall, where she is mentored by the great Dan Leno, and how she meets her husband. The string of Limehouse murders occur, apparently out of the blue, with seemingly no rhyme and reason, attributed locally to a golem, whilst a frenzy of fear runs rife through the community. Karl Marx looks into the Jewish legend of the golem. The police, courtesy of H Division, find themselves at a loss, whilst the media mock Chief Inspector Kildare. As it soon becomes clear, there is reason for the murders.....
Peter Ackroyd does an impressive job in recreating Victorian London and making it come gloriously alive, its culture, the baseness, the hard lives, the literary and philosophic swirl, and expertly incorporates leading figures of the time into the book. This and the rich characterisation makes this an irresistable read, which has now been turned into a major film starring the wonderful Bill Nighy. After reading this, I cannot wait to see it! Many thanks to Random House Vintage for an ARC.
October 17, 2019
”Murder may have been his occupation, but poetry was his delight.”
You may call her Elizabeth, Lambeth Marsh Lizzie, or just plain Lizzie. With the death of her abusive mother, she is cut loose from a life of degrading poverty and, by a quirk of fate, finds herself thrust into the world of the stage. Dan Leno is at the top of his game, and he is the first person to see Lizzie as someone more than just a bit of fluff or a go for it girl. She is a natural entertainer, quick witted, and has the singing voice of a angel. She has finally found her place in the world.
Olivia Cooke plays Lizzie in the 2017 movie.
This is Victorian London, and the city has seen its share of vice, exploitation, debauchery, and oh yes, even murder. Thomas de Quincey’s collection of essays titled On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts has scandalized the town. The Ratcliffe Murders, a dastardly family homicide that happened seventy years ago, he considers to be one of the finest examples of murder as a fine art on par with artists’ renditions of beauty, fine literature, and exalting music.
There is one burgeoning murderer who reads De Quincey’s account with great interest, one might say with reverence. ”And what a marvelous touch by De Quincey, to suggest that Williams’ bright yellow hair, ‘something between an orange and lemon colour’, had been dyed to create a deliberate contrast to the ‘bloodless ghostly pallor’ of his face. I hugged myself in delight when I first read how he had dressed for each murder as if he were going upon the stage.”
Details such of that may have been induced by De Quincey’s own feverish opium influenced mind, but they do put the reader right there in the bloody room, looking the murderer in the face.
The murderer dubbed the Limehouse Golem, an understudy at this point, gains experience by killing the most easy prey. The same, least protected members of society whom Jack the Ripper made quite a mess with at a later date. Like any skill, practice makes perfect, and the goal is to elevate murder to a level at which those who see the tableau will gasp, not only at the grotesqueness of the scene before them but also for the artistry of the composition.
When the bookish, Jewish scholar Solomon Weil is murdered, the Limehouse Golem starts to see the nuances of the art of murder. ”The body is truly a mappamundi with its territories and continents, its rivers of fibre and its oceans of flesh, and in the lineaments of this scholar I could see the spiritual harmony of the body when it is touched by thought and prayer. He lived yet, and sighed as I cut him--sighed, I think, with pleasure as the spirit rose out of the open form.”
This murder brings The Reading Room in which Weil spent so much time under scrutiny and a whole host of potential suspects. It is becoming readily apparent that the Limehouse Golem is something more than just a crazed killer. Leaving bloody messages on the wall in Latin would lead one to believe that this murderer has been inspired by literature. There is the writer George Gissing in the Reading Room, hanging on as best he can to a shabby gentility. He is saddled with a whore for a wife, who will lie with anyone for a chamber pot of gin. Could he possibly be murdering whores in lue of murdering his wife? There is Karl Marx, a man of grand passions. Could he have finally snapped and be expressing his ideas in blood? Inspector Kildare has been given the case because he is expendable. If he succeeds, wonderful, but if he fails, he will be shuffled off into disgraced retirement. The political elements of the force simply do not want to risk one of their golden boys on the rise.
Dan Leno is also a suspect due to some circumstantial evidence. Could his madness on stage have finally spilled out into nights of grand artistic expression?
The other man at The Reading Library on the proper occasions to potentially be a suspect is the journalist/failed playwright John Cree. He has married Lizzie and taken her away from the stage or, in his opinion, has saved her from a life of destitution and sin. When he dies under suspicious circumstances, Lizzie is in the frame. The only way that Kildare can save her is to find out the identity of the Limehouse Golem.
This is a wonderful, evocative, Victorian era murder mystery that has recently been made into a spectacular film titled Limehouse Golem(2017), starring Bill Nighy who lends gravitas to every role he decides to play. The plot is a twisty one that will lead the reader down many a dark alley, chasing a red herring. I decided that I would just hang with Peter Ackroyd and let him tell me the story. I didn’t worry about the subterfuge or even trying to figure out the mystery. I wanted to enjoy the ambiance of Victorian London and found myself laughing at Dan Leno’s bawdy jokes along with the rest of the motley, gin swilling crowd. There is a murderer on the loose, but isn’t that just the spice that London after dark craves?
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
You may call her Elizabeth, Lambeth Marsh Lizzie, or just plain Lizzie. With the death of her abusive mother, she is cut loose from a life of degrading poverty and, by a quirk of fate, finds herself thrust into the world of the stage. Dan Leno is at the top of his game, and he is the first person to see Lizzie as someone more than just a bit of fluff or a go for it girl. She is a natural entertainer, quick witted, and has the singing voice of a angel. She has finally found her place in the world.
Olivia Cooke plays Lizzie in the 2017 movie.
This is Victorian London, and the city has seen its share of vice, exploitation, debauchery, and oh yes, even murder. Thomas de Quincey’s collection of essays titled On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts has scandalized the town. The Ratcliffe Murders, a dastardly family homicide that happened seventy years ago, he considers to be one of the finest examples of murder as a fine art on par with artists’ renditions of beauty, fine literature, and exalting music.
There is one burgeoning murderer who reads De Quincey’s account with great interest, one might say with reverence. ”And what a marvelous touch by De Quincey, to suggest that Williams’ bright yellow hair, ‘something between an orange and lemon colour’, had been dyed to create a deliberate contrast to the ‘bloodless ghostly pallor’ of his face. I hugged myself in delight when I first read how he had dressed for each murder as if he were going upon the stage.”
Details such of that may have been induced by De Quincey’s own feverish opium influenced mind, but they do put the reader right there in the bloody room, looking the murderer in the face.
The murderer dubbed the Limehouse Golem, an understudy at this point, gains experience by killing the most easy prey. The same, least protected members of society whom Jack the Ripper made quite a mess with at a later date. Like any skill, practice makes perfect, and the goal is to elevate murder to a level at which those who see the tableau will gasp, not only at the grotesqueness of the scene before them but also for the artistry of the composition.
When the bookish, Jewish scholar Solomon Weil is murdered, the Limehouse Golem starts to see the nuances of the art of murder. ”The body is truly a mappamundi with its territories and continents, its rivers of fibre and its oceans of flesh, and in the lineaments of this scholar I could see the spiritual harmony of the body when it is touched by thought and prayer. He lived yet, and sighed as I cut him--sighed, I think, with pleasure as the spirit rose out of the open form.”
This murder brings The Reading Room in which Weil spent so much time under scrutiny and a whole host of potential suspects. It is becoming readily apparent that the Limehouse Golem is something more than just a crazed killer. Leaving bloody messages on the wall in Latin would lead one to believe that this murderer has been inspired by literature. There is the writer George Gissing in the Reading Room, hanging on as best he can to a shabby gentility. He is saddled with a whore for a wife, who will lie with anyone for a chamber pot of gin. Could he possibly be murdering whores in lue of murdering his wife? There is Karl Marx, a man of grand passions. Could he have finally snapped and be expressing his ideas in blood? Inspector Kildare has been given the case because he is expendable. If he succeeds, wonderful, but if he fails, he will be shuffled off into disgraced retirement. The political elements of the force simply do not want to risk one of their golden boys on the rise.
Dan Leno is also a suspect due to some circumstantial evidence. Could his madness on stage have finally spilled out into nights of grand artistic expression?
The other man at The Reading Library on the proper occasions to potentially be a suspect is the journalist/failed playwright John Cree. He has married Lizzie and taken her away from the stage or, in his opinion, has saved her from a life of destitution and sin. When he dies under suspicious circumstances, Lizzie is in the frame. The only way that Kildare can save her is to find out the identity of the Limehouse Golem.
This is a wonderful, evocative, Victorian era murder mystery that has recently been made into a spectacular film titled Limehouse Golem(2017), starring Bill Nighy who lends gravitas to every role he decides to play. The plot is a twisty one that will lead the reader down many a dark alley, chasing a red herring. I decided that I would just hang with Peter Ackroyd and let him tell me the story. I didn’t worry about the subterfuge or even trying to figure out the mystery. I wanted to enjoy the ambiance of Victorian London and found myself laughing at Dan Leno’s bawdy jokes along with the rest of the motley, gin swilling crowd. There is a murderer on the loose, but isn’t that just the spice that London after dark craves?
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
January 6, 2018
Poisoning, murder, music hall, artistry, dramaturgy, science, journalism, progress, sociology, poverty: all this miscellany Peter Ackroyd alloys into a homogenous panorama of place and time – London in the nineteenth century on its last legs.
The scenery is gloomy and bleak are the doings and everything that happens turns into the dark phantasmagoria that reminds more of mythology than of history.
The Trial of Elizabeth Cree isn’t just a morose mystery – first of all it is a submersion into the darkness of the human subconscious…
When our instincts begin to domineer over our consciousness we return to our primordial animal nature.
But it is the great thoroughfare, Oxford Street itself, which haunts De Quincey’s imagination. In his Confessions it becomes a street of sorrowful mysteries, of ‘dreamy lamplight’ and the sounds of the barrel organ; he remembers the portico where he fainted away from hunger, and the corner where he and Ann would meet in order to console each other among ‘the mighty labyrinths of London.’ That is why the city and his suffering within it became – if we may borrow a phrase from that great modern poet Charles Baudelaire – the landscape of his imagination. It is this interior world which he places within ‘On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts’ – a world in which suffering, poverty and loneliness are the most striking elements. By chance it was in Oxford Street, also, that he first purchased laudanum – it could be said that the old highway led him directly to those nightmares and fantasies which turned London into some mighty vision akin to that of Piranesi, a labyrinth of stone, a wilderness of blank walls and doors.
The scenery is gloomy and bleak are the doings and everything that happens turns into the dark phantasmagoria that reminds more of mythology than of history.
The Trial of Elizabeth Cree isn’t just a morose mystery – first of all it is a submersion into the darkness of the human subconscious…
Horror is the true sublime. The common people and even the middling classes profess to be sickened or alarmed by my great career but, secretly, they have loved and admired each stage of it. Every newspaper in the country has dwelled reverentially upon my great acts, and sometimes they have even exaggerated them in order to satisfy the public taste – in a sense they have become my understudies, who watch every move and practice every line. I once worked on the Era, and I know how absurdly gullible newspaper reporters can be; no doubt they now believed in the Limehouse Golem with the same fervor as everybody else, and willingly accepted that some supernatural creature was preying upon the living. Mythology of a kind has returned to London – if indeed it ever really left it. Interrogate an inhabitant of London very carefully, and you will find the remnants of some frightened medieval churl.
When our instincts begin to domineer over our consciousness we return to our primordial animal nature.
February 29, 2012
Cor Blimey, Guvn'r. Well that was a right old to do. Set in Victorian London on the banks of the good old shake and shiver, the narrow field o' wheat and the bawdy houses and music halls this jackanory will have you all in a lather - oh what a palaver. The great wen is all a-quiver for there is a killer on the street. It's not safe for a respectable ocean pearl like m'self to be out after dark, oh no. The Limehouse Golem is abroad and I'm not talking about the Costa.
Murder most horrid is being committed by a shadowy glasgow ranger and it has the denizens of Limehouse in a right two and eight. Bodies disembowled and artfully arranged on the apples and pears are giving people the right good scares. The first victim chosen was a one time looker, often the sad fate of a street walking hooker. Two more follow after that, and three is a spree but what happens when you add an entire family? Lizzie Cree is set to swing, the gallows drop is a sure thing, but are there more twists in her tale than in a hangmans noose? This fish hook is definitely worth a look.
Murder most horrid is being committed by a shadowy glasgow ranger and it has the denizens of Limehouse in a right two and eight. Bodies disembowled and artfully arranged on the apples and pears are giving people the right good scares. The first victim chosen was a one time looker, often the sad fate of a street walking hooker. Two more follow after that, and three is a spree but what happens when you add an entire family? Lizzie Cree is set to swing, the gallows drop is a sure thing, but are there more twists in her tale than in a hangmans noose? This fish hook is definitely worth a look.
March 8, 2008
I have to say that this is one of the finer Victorian mysteries I've read and it kept me on the edge of the chair until the end. Once in a while I would get this idea that something is dreadfully wrong here, but couldn't quite put my finger on it. However, the true beauty of this novel is the atmosphere -- London during the Victorian period -- the darkness tends to overwhelm you while you read it. It is quite good (I love Ackroyd's works) and one in which the true mystery aficionado will not be disappointed.
Set in 1880s London, the story begins with the hanging of a woman, Elizabeth Cree, who has been found guilty of the murder of her husband, but only a few pages are devoted to this act; the story begins in earnest with a murderer whose works are detailed within the pages of a diary. As the murderer does not confine himself to one killing, and as the killings all seem to take place in a part of London known as Limehouse, the panic spreads and the murderer gains a name from the press: "The Limehouse Golem."
But Victorian London itself, or at least its somewhat darker denizens, is as much the topic of this book as is this series of murders. Author and essayist George Gissing and Karl Marx both turn up as themselves here, analyzing the suffering of those on the streets and the society which causes this to happen. Ackroyd's description of London is so incredible that you'll start imagining the darkness of the fogs, the smells, the poor and all of their sufferings, the theaters that Karl Marx proclaims are the true opiate of the masses. Simply wonderful all around.
Set in 1880s London, the story begins with the hanging of a woman, Elizabeth Cree, who has been found guilty of the murder of her husband, but only a few pages are devoted to this act; the story begins in earnest with a murderer whose works are detailed within the pages of a diary. As the murderer does not confine himself to one killing, and as the killings all seem to take place in a part of London known as Limehouse, the panic spreads and the murderer gains a name from the press: "The Limehouse Golem."
But Victorian London itself, or at least its somewhat darker denizens, is as much the topic of this book as is this series of murders. Author and essayist George Gissing and Karl Marx both turn up as themselves here, analyzing the suffering of those on the streets and the society which causes this to happen. Ackroyd's description of London is so incredible that you'll start imagining the darkness of the fogs, the smells, the poor and all of their sufferings, the theaters that Karl Marx proclaims are the true opiate of the masses. Simply wonderful all around.
November 24, 2021
CRITIQUE:
"Let Us Begin, Friends, at the End"
In retrospect, this is a superb work of Victorian-era historical crime fiction. Structurally, there's just enough going on, to make it interesting from a literary point of view as well.
There are four initial crimes (all murders, including one of the entire Gerrard family), one gay police inspector (John Kildare) in lukewarm to hot pursuit, four (if not five) suspects, and an unseen sixth supernatural suspect (the Limehouse Golem) invented by the London daily newspapers.
My copy of the novel consists of 282 pages and 51 chapters, making it just under six pages per chapter. This ensures that it's relatively easy to progress reading from beginning to end, even if there remains some uncertainty over the responsibility for the crimes.
As I would normally do, I recommend that you read this novel before watching the film, which pursues a singular perspective on the plot and the identity of the murderer. The ambiguity of the novel (especially to the extent it deals with gender roles, cross-dressing and pantomime) is the more rewarding experience.
Multiple Misleading Music Hall Narratives
Ackroyd uses multiple narratives documenting multiple perspectives (e.g., third person and first person narration), as well as extracts from a diary, and the cross-examination of the music hall actress, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Cree, in her trial for the murder by poisoning of her husband, John Cree (a related, but different crime to the four mentioned above). We learn in the first sentence of the novel that Lizzie is convicted and hanged the following year.
The question remaining at the end of the novel is whether Lizzie's conviction and hanging deprived justice of a perpetrator or a material witness with respect to the four Golem murders.
The true culprit is concealed, rather than revealed, by the written word, although there are enough insinuations for all of us to have our suspicions. Readers are denied absolute certainty with respect to the resolution of the criminal investigation.
Several Superfluous Suspects and Characters
There are multiple characters, even suspects, although many prove to be superfluous to the plot. Some of the real life historical characters add little more than contemporary spice to the recipe for Victorian crime. They mitigate against the novel having a one (or two)-dimensional focus on Lizzie (and her husband). Nevertheless, Lizzie is clearly at the centre of the narrative, both literally and metaphorically.
The first suspect is the actor, comedian, vocalist, "contortionist and posturer," Dan Leno, of the title. The case against him isn't particularly persuasive. He remains little more than a music hall inspiration for Lizzie. While Dan Leno cross-dresses as a woman on stage, he promotes the role of women in theatre, music and comedy, thus liberating Lizzie (who often performs as a male character).
Lizzie (Olivia Cooke) and Dan Leno (Douglas Booth) in the film of the novel, "The Limehouse Golem"
Theatrical and Non-Theatrical Aspirations
Because the golem of the title is mythical or fictitious, it works against the aspirational role of Dan Leno. Its role is to frighten the public into submission, and sell newspapers (which would become a tabloid tradition). Aspirations are left to be developed in the British Museum.
If you don't count Lizzie herself, three of the principal suspects are united by the fact that they spend time next to each other every day in the reading room of the British Museum, which is within walking distance of the suburb of Limehouse in which the murders are committed.
The frequenters of the reading room are the author George Gissing, the philosopher, economist and agitator/ revolutionary Karl Marx, the German-Jewish scholar, Solomon Weil, and the journalist and aspiring playwright, John Cree (Lizzie's husband). They're linked by their interest in poverty and misery, particularly that of the working class residents of Limehouse. In a sense, the novel is artfully concerned with the liberation, participation and promotion of both women and the working class, even if Lizzie falls by the wayside and doesn't last the journey.
Marx and Weil strike up a friendship in which they discuss cabbalism and esoteric aspects of Judaism (including golems), but Weil doesn't last long enough to become a serious suspect in the succession of murders, because he himself is murdered in his home in Scofield Street.
Marx briefly becomes a suspect, when he is spotted leaving Weil's home around the time of his murder on the night of a great fog. The police tell Marx that Weil's murderer had severed his penis and placed it on the open page of a book across the entry for "golem". Is the golem associated with the penis (i.e., a male) or is it protesting against the penis a la Valerie Solanas (i.e., a female)?
Marx concludes that "it is the Jew who has been violated", not Weil in particular. Marx is soon dismissed as a suspect, which ends his function in the plot, except that his daughter, Eleanor, acts in John's and Lizzie's play at the Canterbury Music Hall.
George Gissing is researching an article on the work of Charles Babbage (including the "difference engine" and "analytical engine" [early forms of calculator or computer]) for the Pall Mall Review. These machines were to be the engines of progress. The police ultimately accept his alibi, and he too passes from view.
Condemned by Written Evidence
John Cree is incriminated by both third person narratives (some of which is mere circumstantial evidence) and extracts from his diary.
In retrospect, the diary is of dubious origin. We learn that Lizzie has finished writing a play that her husband hadn't been able to complete, ostensibly because she wishes to star as the heroine. Cree is both angry and resentful, possibly because she has more literary or, at least, theatrical talent than he does. Not for the first or last time, a husband or male diminishes the role of a wife or woman. Cree, instead, researches the hypothesis that murder is a form of art (as ventured by Thomas De Quincey in his 1827 essay).
"Here We Are Again"
Unbeknown to Cree, the husband in Lizzie's version of the play is poisoned by his wife. (We have to ask whether the fiction anticipates real life.) When Cree himself dies or is murdered, we can draw two inferences concerning Lizzie: his anger and aggression might have provided Lizzie with enough justification or motive to kill him; and Lizzie might have written at least the incriminating entries in his diary, thus deflecting suspicion for the Golem murders away from herself.
If Lizzie was in fact the murderer (i.e., the Limehouse Golem), then she would never be charged with committing these crimes, nor would she be punished for them (although she was still hanged for murdering her husband, you can only be hanged once).
Her hanging effectively removed any prospect of determining either her guilt or her innocence with respect to the Golem murders. Only the novel can reveal that, to the extent that any, much or all of it is credible.
MUSIC HALL MATERIAL:
Not That Much
[Apologies to David Johansen]
Please don't stick it out so much
You're not my husband as such
Please don't stick it in so much
I like you but not that much.
SOUNDTRACK:
"Let Us Begin, Friends, at the End"
In retrospect, this is a superb work of Victorian-era historical crime fiction. Structurally, there's just enough going on, to make it interesting from a literary point of view as well.
There are four initial crimes (all murders, including one of the entire Gerrard family), one gay police inspector (John Kildare) in lukewarm to hot pursuit, four (if not five) suspects, and an unseen sixth supernatural suspect (the Limehouse Golem) invented by the London daily newspapers.
My copy of the novel consists of 282 pages and 51 chapters, making it just under six pages per chapter. This ensures that it's relatively easy to progress reading from beginning to end, even if there remains some uncertainty over the responsibility for the crimes.
As I would normally do, I recommend that you read this novel before watching the film, which pursues a singular perspective on the plot and the identity of the murderer. The ambiguity of the novel (especially to the extent it deals with gender roles, cross-dressing and pantomime) is the more rewarding experience.
Multiple Misleading Music Hall Narratives
Ackroyd uses multiple narratives documenting multiple perspectives (e.g., third person and first person narration), as well as extracts from a diary, and the cross-examination of the music hall actress, Elizabeth (Lizzie) Cree, in her trial for the murder by poisoning of her husband, John Cree (a related, but different crime to the four mentioned above). We learn in the first sentence of the novel that Lizzie is convicted and hanged the following year.
The question remaining at the end of the novel is whether Lizzie's conviction and hanging deprived justice of a perpetrator or a material witness with respect to the four Golem murders.
The true culprit is concealed, rather than revealed, by the written word, although there are enough insinuations for all of us to have our suspicions. Readers are denied absolute certainty with respect to the resolution of the criminal investigation.
Several Superfluous Suspects and Characters
There are multiple characters, even suspects, although many prove to be superfluous to the plot. Some of the real life historical characters add little more than contemporary spice to the recipe for Victorian crime. They mitigate against the novel having a one (or two)-dimensional focus on Lizzie (and her husband). Nevertheless, Lizzie is clearly at the centre of the narrative, both literally and metaphorically.
The first suspect is the actor, comedian, vocalist, "contortionist and posturer," Dan Leno, of the title. The case against him isn't particularly persuasive. He remains little more than a music hall inspiration for Lizzie. While Dan Leno cross-dresses as a woman on stage, he promotes the role of women in theatre, music and comedy, thus liberating Lizzie (who often performs as a male character).
Lizzie (Olivia Cooke) and Dan Leno (Douglas Booth) in the film of the novel, "The Limehouse Golem"
Theatrical and Non-Theatrical Aspirations
Because the golem of the title is mythical or fictitious, it works against the aspirational role of Dan Leno. Its role is to frighten the public into submission, and sell newspapers (which would become a tabloid tradition). Aspirations are left to be developed in the British Museum.
If you don't count Lizzie herself, three of the principal suspects are united by the fact that they spend time next to each other every day in the reading room of the British Museum, which is within walking distance of the suburb of Limehouse in which the murders are committed.
The frequenters of the reading room are the author George Gissing, the philosopher, economist and agitator/ revolutionary Karl Marx, the German-Jewish scholar, Solomon Weil, and the journalist and aspiring playwright, John Cree (Lizzie's husband). They're linked by their interest in poverty and misery, particularly that of the working class residents of Limehouse. In a sense, the novel is artfully concerned with the liberation, participation and promotion of both women and the working class, even if Lizzie falls by the wayside and doesn't last the journey.
Marx and Weil strike up a friendship in which they discuss cabbalism and esoteric aspects of Judaism (including golems), but Weil doesn't last long enough to become a serious suspect in the succession of murders, because he himself is murdered in his home in Scofield Street.
Marx briefly becomes a suspect, when he is spotted leaving Weil's home around the time of his murder on the night of a great fog. The police tell Marx that Weil's murderer had severed his penis and placed it on the open page of a book across the entry for "golem". Is the golem associated with the penis (i.e., a male) or is it protesting against the penis a la Valerie Solanas (i.e., a female)?
Marx concludes that "it is the Jew who has been violated", not Weil in particular. Marx is soon dismissed as a suspect, which ends his function in the plot, except that his daughter, Eleanor, acts in John's and Lizzie's play at the Canterbury Music Hall.
George Gissing is researching an article on the work of Charles Babbage (including the "difference engine" and "analytical engine" [early forms of calculator or computer]) for the Pall Mall Review. These machines were to be the engines of progress. The police ultimately accept his alibi, and he too passes from view.
Condemned by Written Evidence
John Cree is incriminated by both third person narratives (some of which is mere circumstantial evidence) and extracts from his diary.
In retrospect, the diary is of dubious origin. We learn that Lizzie has finished writing a play that her husband hadn't been able to complete, ostensibly because she wishes to star as the heroine. Cree is both angry and resentful, possibly because she has more literary or, at least, theatrical talent than he does. Not for the first or last time, a husband or male diminishes the role of a wife or woman. Cree, instead, researches the hypothesis that murder is a form of art (as ventured by Thomas De Quincey in his 1827 essay).
"Here We Are Again"
Unbeknown to Cree, the husband in Lizzie's version of the play is poisoned by his wife. (We have to ask whether the fiction anticipates real life.) When Cree himself dies or is murdered, we can draw two inferences concerning Lizzie: his anger and aggression might have provided Lizzie with enough justification or motive to kill him; and Lizzie might have written at least the incriminating entries in his diary, thus deflecting suspicion for the Golem murders away from herself.
If Lizzie was in fact the murderer (i.e., the Limehouse Golem), then she would never be charged with committing these crimes, nor would she be punished for them (although she was still hanged for murdering her husband, you can only be hanged once).
Her hanging effectively removed any prospect of determining either her guilt or her innocence with respect to the Golem murders. Only the novel can reveal that, to the extent that any, much or all of it is credible.
MUSIC HALL MATERIAL:
Not That Much
[Apologies to David Johansen]
Please don't stick it out so much
You're not my husband as such
Please don't stick it in so much
I like you but not that much.
SOUNDTRACK:
March 8, 2017
This is my third Ackroyd and really the first one I have got along with. In fact it is one of those books you read where you get so pally with it it is sad to finish. As is customary the author looks back on the murderous history of a part of London but this time he has peopled his re-telling with absorbing characters that are very much flesh and bone. The musical hall scene of the time, the late Victorian age, is a delicious backdrop and the juxtaposition of dull-to-the-death poverty against promised progress and the vibrancy of the stage and its stars is beautifully done. The twists and turns of the story are not perhaps as surprising as they could be but who cares; Akroyd's examination of place is, as befits his obsession, as important as the story itself.
Limehouse is a district, a fringe of the city seemingly dedicated to death. It is a place where murderers are buried and the putrefaction of their corpses hurried along by the liberal sprinkling of lime. But it is also a place where murderers are made, in the living-death of the backstreets. It's a place where it's easy to believe in golems, animated from the dirt and squalor that exists there. Karl Marx's appearance hints at the bigger picture, the slow murder of the proletariat, the connection between the death of hope and the death of mankind. But all in all this is a place of costume and disguise and the many-peopled Dan Leno, another famous name from history and drawn from the same common dirt as any golem. It's a work of sublime fiction.
Limehouse is a district, a fringe of the city seemingly dedicated to death. It is a place where murderers are buried and the putrefaction of their corpses hurried along by the liberal sprinkling of lime. But it is also a place where murderers are made, in the living-death of the backstreets. It's a place where it's easy to believe in golems, animated from the dirt and squalor that exists there. Karl Marx's appearance hints at the bigger picture, the slow murder of the proletariat, the connection between the death of hope and the death of mankind. But all in all this is a place of costume and disguise and the many-peopled Dan Leno, another famous name from history and drawn from the same common dirt as any golem. It's a work of sublime fiction.
December 30, 2017
Dass die Theater in London und die Stadt London als Bühne ineinander greifen, hat Peter Ackroyd bereits in seiner Biografie Londons beschrieben und er führt das hier in einem wunderbaren Roman aus. Neben erfundenden Figuren lässt er auf seiner Romanbühne auch historische FIguren wir Karl Marx, den Schriftsteller George Gissing und vor allem den Komiker Dan Leno auftreten. Hinzu kommt die Geschichte eines fiktiven Serienmörders, der wenige Jahre vor Jack the Ripper sein Unwesen treibt und hin und wieder an die Ratcliffe Highway Morde denken lässt.
Nachtrag 30.12.2017:
Gerade habe ich die Verfilmung gesehen, die - wie die Kritiken nahelegten - nicht wirklich sehenswert ist. Aber ein paar nette Impressionen aus dem Londoner Varieté der 1880er Jahre waren schon dabei.
Nachtrag 30.12.2017:
Gerade habe ich die Verfilmung gesehen, die - wie die Kritiken nahelegten - nicht wirklich sehenswert ist. Aber ein paar nette Impressionen aus dem Londoner Varieté der 1880er Jahre waren schon dabei.
December 25, 2022
The novel opens with Elizabeth Cree being escorted to a shed where the gallows stood. Perhaps because I read a lot of mysteries (or maybe not), I thought she might have been wrongly accused and convicted. What follows is the story of how she came to be so escorted.
The construction of the novel is interesting. This first chapter and others are told in the third person. There are also chapters told in the first person by Elizabeth. There are trial transcripts. And then there are diary entries - who writes these is unclear in the first couple of instances but becomes clear as the novel develops.
Peter Ackroyd enfolds reality with fiction in this one. The original title is Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. Dan Leno was a real person who performed comedy on multiple London stages. Leno depicted both men and women and had some wonderful one-liners. In truth, there was no serial killer on the loose in the Limehouse District, though perhaps Ackroyd thought about Jack the Ripper.
John Cree, Elizabeth's husband, studied Thomas De Quincey's On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts, which described a mass murder of 50 or so years earlier than the setting for the novel. While at the Reading Room of the British Museum, Cree sat between Karl Marx and George Gissing. Ackroyd has both of these men investigated as possible suspects. For both we are given a brief glimpse of their real lives. For me, some of the information on Gissing was fascinating. There is even the conjecture that The murders in Limehouse led indirectly to The Picture of Dorian Gray, written by Oscar Wilde some eight years later ...
I thought this not as good as Ackroyd's The Lambs of London, but I am gratified to know that he has more that will be of interest. I once heard someone say she couldn't die as long as she had books to read, and if true, it begins to look as if I might live forever. In any case, this one began as a middlin' 3-stars but developed into a 4-star read.
The construction of the novel is interesting. This first chapter and others are told in the third person. There are also chapters told in the first person by Elizabeth. There are trial transcripts. And then there are diary entries - who writes these is unclear in the first couple of instances but becomes clear as the novel develops.
Peter Ackroyd enfolds reality with fiction in this one. The original title is Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. Dan Leno was a real person who performed comedy on multiple London stages. Leno depicted both men and women and had some wonderful one-liners. In truth, there was no serial killer on the loose in the Limehouse District, though perhaps Ackroyd thought about Jack the Ripper.
John Cree, Elizabeth's husband, studied Thomas De Quincey's On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts, which described a mass murder of 50 or so years earlier than the setting for the novel. While at the Reading Room of the British Museum, Cree sat between Karl Marx and George Gissing. Ackroyd has both of these men investigated as possible suspects. For both we are given a brief glimpse of their real lives. For me, some of the information on Gissing was fascinating. There is even the conjecture that The murders in Limehouse led indirectly to The Picture of Dorian Gray, written by Oscar Wilde some eight years later ...
I thought this not as good as Ackroyd's The Lambs of London, but I am gratified to know that he has more that will be of interest. I once heard someone say she couldn't die as long as she had books to read, and if true, it begins to look as if I might live forever. In any case, this one began as a middlin' 3-stars but developed into a 4-star read.
June 10, 2009
I thought this was more a tragedy than a mystery until the ending, and then I realized that I knew nothing. Grotesque atmosphere, filled with great portrayals of historical figures, a horrifying murderer, music hall, Karl Marx, George Gissing’s prophetic musings on Babbage’s Difference Engine, illusions, cross dressing, and wonderful and sometimes creepy descriptions of Victorian England, this is a fascinating if sometimes cold book(and dark and difficult). The ending is haunting if not exactly 100% convincing but then again it reorders my every thought on the book so I may need to consider it for awhile. Fans of From Hell will definitely enjoy (!?) this.
August 28, 2017
An accused and convicted murderer, 31 year old Elizabeth Cree, was to face her final audience, only a small selected crowd had been hand picked for the purpose and being the performer she was she wouldn’t let it pass and so she spoke her last words, before the noose tightened , “Here we are again”. The date is 6th April 1881 and the place is Camberwell Prison London.
The story drops back to be pieced together from the trial of Elizabeth Cree, the diaries of her deceased husband and her own story leading up to her death. Set in the East End of London in the 1800’s the streets are paved with filth and the air is laced with smog but if some of the residents could scrape enough money together there was an escape, just for a little while. A trip across the Thames paying a penny to the ferry man delivered the theatres and a comical look at life together with a sing song for all. On one of these nights, 10th September 1880, June Quig was murdered, ok a dead body in London, a prostitute at that and on the poorer side of the Thames, not really breaking news except in the way she was displayed. As a second murder victim soon follows, grotesquely disfigured and displayed again, the killer gained a name this time, The Limehouse Golem.
This is some wicked story that throws you about as a reader and whoa what a macabre killing machine this person is. No hesitation, no regret, no idea who is doing this. A work of art to be shared. The Golem is a fictional character created from myths as an artificial being by magicians or a Jewish Rabi in the 15th century. Now mobs were heard running through the streets after seeing the Golem for it only to disappear, but the police worked from evidence and facts alone not hysteria. But the body count continued to rise.
This book has now been made into a big screen film to be released very soon and if it is anything to go by it is going to be tremendous Block Buster. Peter Ackroyd created two sides of Victorian London, one where the poor went to the theatre to laugh and forget their lives and the other where fantasy retold the horrors of the outside in the theatre to make the poor accept the tragedies easier.
The murders, although totally macabre have a sort of morbid fascination about their execution as you glimpse how this killer’s mind works and how what is happening is seen through their eyes. It isn’t a place you want to stay for long. The Victorian Music Halls were the sanity for the poor of London and were stars were created like Dan Leno, was one of the funniest performers of his time. This is a book built on atmosphere and was already easy to play in my mind as I read. I love to read a book before I see the film as it makes for a more intense viewing. I have been in this killers mind …………………..
I wish to thank the publisher for an invitation to read this novel, this review is an honest reflection of my thoughts.
The story drops back to be pieced together from the trial of Elizabeth Cree, the diaries of her deceased husband and her own story leading up to her death. Set in the East End of London in the 1800’s the streets are paved with filth and the air is laced with smog but if some of the residents could scrape enough money together there was an escape, just for a little while. A trip across the Thames paying a penny to the ferry man delivered the theatres and a comical look at life together with a sing song for all. On one of these nights, 10th September 1880, June Quig was murdered, ok a dead body in London, a prostitute at that and on the poorer side of the Thames, not really breaking news except in the way she was displayed. As a second murder victim soon follows, grotesquely disfigured and displayed again, the killer gained a name this time, The Limehouse Golem.
This is some wicked story that throws you about as a reader and whoa what a macabre killing machine this person is. No hesitation, no regret, no idea who is doing this. A work of art to be shared. The Golem is a fictional character created from myths as an artificial being by magicians or a Jewish Rabi in the 15th century. Now mobs were heard running through the streets after seeing the Golem for it only to disappear, but the police worked from evidence and facts alone not hysteria. But the body count continued to rise.
This book has now been made into a big screen film to be released very soon and if it is anything to go by it is going to be tremendous Block Buster. Peter Ackroyd created two sides of Victorian London, one where the poor went to the theatre to laugh and forget their lives and the other where fantasy retold the horrors of the outside in the theatre to make the poor accept the tragedies easier.
The murders, although totally macabre have a sort of morbid fascination about their execution as you glimpse how this killer’s mind works and how what is happening is seen through their eyes. It isn’t a place you want to stay for long. The Victorian Music Halls were the sanity for the poor of London and were stars were created like Dan Leno, was one of the funniest performers of his time. This is a book built on atmosphere and was already easy to play in my mind as I read. I love to read a book before I see the film as it makes for a more intense viewing. I have been in this killers mind …………………..
I wish to thank the publisher for an invitation to read this novel, this review is an honest reflection of my thoughts.
February 26, 2018
I quite enjoyed the 2017 film version of Peter Ackroyd's novel Dan Leno & The Limehouse Golem. However, I felt it could have been better & so I decided to check out the original story.
Ackroyd uses a pretty eclectic style of writing throughout the story, including diary extracts, court interviews & first & third person narration. Yet with all these styles the story is very easy to follow & his knowledge of 19th Century London is excellent.
Between some gruesome murders Ackroyd creates a wonderful picture of Music Hall life & introduces us to many memorable characters. Mixing in real people (including Karl Marx) & real historical events (the Ratcliffe Highway murders) works well with the fictional proceedings.
Occasionally the book gets a little bogged down & I found the parts with (the real life) George Gissing somewhat dull.
Depending on your viewpoint there is a very (im)plausible twist, which for some people either makes or breaks the book. Having read the story I had one of those rare moments when I actually wished it had been longer. Perhaps I need to give the film a second chance.
Ackroyd uses a pretty eclectic style of writing throughout the story, including diary extracts, court interviews & first & third person narration. Yet with all these styles the story is very easy to follow & his knowledge of 19th Century London is excellent.
Between some gruesome murders Ackroyd creates a wonderful picture of Music Hall life & introduces us to many memorable characters. Mixing in real people (including Karl Marx) & real historical events (the Ratcliffe Highway murders) works well with the fictional proceedings.
Occasionally the book gets a little bogged down & I found the parts with (the real life) George Gissing somewhat dull.
Depending on your viewpoint there is a very (im)plausible twist, which for some people either makes or breaks the book. Having read the story I had one of those rare moments when I actually wished it had been longer. Perhaps I need to give the film a second chance.
October 5, 2017
This is the first of Ackroyd's novels that I've actually gotten along with (although I did enjoy his brief biography of Isaac Newton a while back). Mind you, I've only tried two of the others: I actively disliked First Light and I failed to get through The House of Dr Dee (although I still have the latter on my shelves, ready for if I decide to give it another go). At the same time, I'd like to take issue with the rave review extract from the UK Independent on Sunday that appears on the flap of the (retitled) US edition:
To which all one can respond is: Bollocks! The reviewer should go read some Rendell and James, neither of whom wrote novels that remotely resemble Ackroyd's. (A far better comparison might have been with Wilkie Collins, come to think of it.) While this is a novel that has at its heart a series of brutal murders in the London district of Limehouse in 1880 (it's a tribute to Ackroyd's skill that, not having time right now to do more research than a quick look in Wikipedia, I'm uncertain as to the historicity of these murders), it can't really be described as a crime novel in the accepted meaning of that term. Far less can it sensibly be called a mystery novel, although it often is: there's a twist at the end (except it's multiply signaled well beforehand), but there's no real detection in sight, the cops -- in the form of the Yard's Inspector Eric Kildare -- doing little more than some pointless flailing around.
What we have instead is a really quite engrossing tale, told through a patchwork of narratives as ex-music hall performer Elizabeth Cree stands trial for the poisoning murder of her husband John: we have trial transcripts, Elizabeth's recollections of her days treading the London boards alongside the likes of fabled comedian Dan Leno, straightforward third-person relation, diary extracts, even a chunk of an essay (which may or may not be a real one; again I've no time to check) by the novelist George Gissing -- who, like Karl Marx, plays a peripheral part in the proceedings and is briefly one of Kildare's suspects. The mixture of approaches adds to the verisimilitude of the account while the diversity of styles brings a sense of frequently renewed freshness to the proceedings. I was impressed.
At the same time, the novel's far from flawless. There's a minor subplot concerning Charles Babbage, and Gissing's discovery of his work and visit to the Analytical Engine, a subplot that doesn't really go anywhere and seems to me to add nothing to the tale. Even if I were feeling tolerant about that aspect -- believe me, it's difficult for this fan of Gissing and of Babbage/Lovelace to be critical of it! -- I'm not 100% enthused about the practice of dragging historical characters into novels unless they demand to be there. About the presence of Leno I'm fine, because it's absolutely integral to the tale that Elizabeth should have been a music hall (US readers: think vaudeville) artiste and so she could well have associated with this foremost comedian of the age. I'm not so certain Gissing and Marx are really needed, though; presumably Ackroyd was just fascinated by the fact that the two were contemporaneous habitues of the Reading Room at the British Museum.
And there's another little episode, seemingly shoehorned in, that set my teeth a-grating. Leno encounters and helps a certain Harry Chaplin, whose pregnant wife, we're led to believe, might have miscarried were it not for Leno's generosity. And guess who that unborn baby might be, oh yes!!!!! Only, Charlie Chaplin's father was likewise called Charles, not Harry, and Charlie wasn't born until 1889 -- nearly a decade after the events of this novel. Perhaps Ackroyd was impishly playing with our expectations. Whatever the case, I was irritated when taken in by the subterfuge and even more so when I discovered it for what it was.
There's also the occasional bit of whimsical cobblers (okay, don't think too hard about that image . . . and don't wonder why my term "cobblers" here is so much more socially acceptable than my cry of "bollocks" earlier):
Actually, they turned away from it because they thought Babbage, despite all the sterling work he'd done promoting UK mathematics, was in some respects a bit of a loony -- that his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine were impracticable dead ends. In this they were in fact correct: there was nothing wrong with Babbage's dream, but there was no way it could be achieved through the kind of cogs-and-levers mechanisms he, as a child of his time, could conceive. The real breakthrough to come from the whole enterprise was that of his associate Ada Lovelace, who wrote what can be regarded as the first computer program.
But those criticisms are asides. In the main I was genuinely enthralled by this novel, to the point that my retry of The House of Dr Dee is likely to come sooner rather than later.
I read this novel in the US edition, retitled The Trial of Elizabeth Cree. However, this is so much less evocative a title than the original that, throughout the time I was reading the book, I thought of it as Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. It would have seemed somehow dissonant to have put my notes on the book under the "wrong" title.
The novel's 2016 screen adaptation, The Limehouse Golem, directed by Juan Carlos Medina and featuring Olivia Cooke and Bill Nighy, is very much on my to-watch list.
Ackroyd has pulled off the greatest coup of all . . . The man who juggles genres with supreme assurance has bought into one, gone straight and written a four-square, copper-bottomed crime novel which should assure his election to the Detection Club . . . All in all, Ruth Rendell and P.D. James can count themselves lucky that Peter Ackroyd has made it a point of honour never to repeat himself!
To which all one can respond is: Bollocks! The reviewer should go read some Rendell and James, neither of whom wrote novels that remotely resemble Ackroyd's. (A far better comparison might have been with Wilkie Collins, come to think of it.) While this is a novel that has at its heart a series of brutal murders in the London district of Limehouse in 1880 (it's a tribute to Ackroyd's skill that, not having time right now to do more research than a quick look in Wikipedia, I'm uncertain as to the historicity of these murders), it can't really be described as a crime novel in the accepted meaning of that term. Far less can it sensibly be called a mystery novel, although it often is: there's a twist at the end (except it's multiply signaled well beforehand), but there's no real detection in sight, the cops -- in the form of the Yard's Inspector Eric Kildare -- doing little more than some pointless flailing around.
What we have instead is a really quite engrossing tale, told through a patchwork of narratives as ex-music hall performer Elizabeth Cree stands trial for the poisoning murder of her husband John: we have trial transcripts, Elizabeth's recollections of her days treading the London boards alongside the likes of fabled comedian Dan Leno, straightforward third-person relation, diary extracts, even a chunk of an essay (which may or may not be a real one; again I've no time to check) by the novelist George Gissing -- who, like Karl Marx, plays a peripheral part in the proceedings and is briefly one of Kildare's suspects. The mixture of approaches adds to the verisimilitude of the account while the diversity of styles brings a sense of frequently renewed freshness to the proceedings. I was impressed.
At the same time, the novel's far from flawless. There's a minor subplot concerning Charles Babbage, and Gissing's discovery of his work and visit to the Analytical Engine, a subplot that doesn't really go anywhere and seems to me to add nothing to the tale. Even if I were feeling tolerant about that aspect -- believe me, it's difficult for this fan of Gissing and of Babbage/Lovelace to be critical of it! -- I'm not 100% enthused about the practice of dragging historical characters into novels unless they demand to be there. About the presence of Leno I'm fine, because it's absolutely integral to the tale that Elizabeth should have been a music hall (US readers: think vaudeville) artiste and so she could well have associated with this foremost comedian of the age. I'm not so certain Gissing and Marx are really needed, though; presumably Ackroyd was just fascinated by the fact that the two were contemporaneous habitues of the Reading Room at the British Museum.
And there's another little episode, seemingly shoehorned in, that set my teeth a-grating. Leno encounters and helps a certain Harry Chaplin, whose pregnant wife, we're led to believe, might have miscarried were it not for Leno's generosity. And guess who that unborn baby might be, oh yes!!!!! Only, Charlie Chaplin's father was likewise called Charles, not Harry, and Charlie wasn't born until 1889 -- nearly a decade after the events of this novel. Perhaps Ackroyd was impishly playing with our expectations. Whatever the case, I was irritated when taken in by the subterfuge and even more so when I discovered it for what it was.
There's also the occasional bit of whimsical cobblers (okay, don't think too hard about that image . . . and don't wonder why my term "cobblers" here is so much more socially acceptable than my cry of "bollocks" earlier):
This was the dream of Charles Babbage -- a computer built more than a hundred years before any of its modern counterparts, which now gleamed like a hallucination in the light of September 1880. The scientists and professional mechanics of the nineteenth century had instinctively turned away from it, without realizing why they had done so: this engine was not in its proper time and, as yet, could have no real existence upon the earth.
Actually, they turned away from it because they thought Babbage, despite all the sterling work he'd done promoting UK mathematics, was in some respects a bit of a loony -- that his Difference Engine and Analytical Engine were impracticable dead ends. In this they were in fact correct: there was nothing wrong with Babbage's dream, but there was no way it could be achieved through the kind of cogs-and-levers mechanisms he, as a child of his time, could conceive. The real breakthrough to come from the whole enterprise was that of his associate Ada Lovelace, who wrote what can be regarded as the first computer program.
But those criticisms are asides. In the main I was genuinely enthralled by this novel, to the point that my retry of The House of Dr Dee is likely to come sooner rather than later.
I read this novel in the US edition, retitled The Trial of Elizabeth Cree. However, this is so much less evocative a title than the original that, throughout the time I was reading the book, I thought of it as Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem. It would have seemed somehow dissonant to have put my notes on the book under the "wrong" title.
The novel's 2016 screen adaptation, The Limehouse Golem, directed by Juan Carlos Medina and featuring Olivia Cooke and Bill Nighy, is very much on my to-watch list.
November 21, 2011
Dan Leno And The Limehouse Golem is quite simply a masterpiece. Every aspect of the novel is remarkable. It’s a whodunit, though it suggests a couple of credible suspects right at the start. It even convicts its central character to death by hanging before we have even got to know her. Clearly things are not going to be obvious. The novel is also a study in character, especially that of its central actor, Lambeth Marsh Lizzie, later Mrs Elizabeth Cree. It’s also an evocation of London in the late nineteenth century, complete with colours, smells, vistas and perspectives. It’s a highly literary work, ever conscious of its place beside the genres it skirts. Overall, it’s a wonderful example of how form can be used as inventively as plot to create a story.
The novel has a series of interlocking stands. In one our anti-heroine, Lizzie, is accused of the murder of John Cree, her husband. In another, John Cree’s diary reveals certain secrets that not only he would have wanted to hide. In a third strand, we learn of Lambeth Marsh Lizzie’s past, how she came to a life in the theatre and how she met her husband. A fourth strand follows the career of Dan Leno, a music hall player, worshipper of the silent clown Grimaldi and mentor of Lizzie’s stage life. And in a fifth strand we see how, in a great city like London, our paths inevitably cross those of great thinkers, writers, artists and, of course, history itself. Peter Ackroyd thus has his characters cross the paths of a writer, George Gissing, and a thinker of note, one Karl Marx, as they tramp the streets of Limehouse after a day at the library.
As usual, sex has a lot to do with the relationships in the book. It is usually on top, but here it also comes underneath and sometimes on the side of events. Mrs Cree is accused of poisoning her husband. Their married life has been far from conventional, but are its inadequacies the motive for a series of brutal killings of prostitutes and others in the Limehouse area? As a result of the curious placement of certain trophies, the killings are attributed in the popular mind to a golem, a mythical creature made of clay that can change it shape at will. Karl Marx examines the Jewish myths surrounding the subject. Others steer clear of the subject.
Lizzie continues on the stage until she meets her husband. She learns much stagecraft from Dan Leno and eventually resolves to help her husband to complete the play over which he has unsuccessfully laboured. When the book’s plot resolves, we are surprised, but then everything makes such perfect sense. And in a real piece of insight, Peter Ackroyd likens the mass murderer to Romaticism perfected, the ultimate triumph of individualism. There is much to stimulate the mind in this thriller.
A reader of this review might suspect that Dan leno And The Limehouse Golem is a difficult read, a book whose diverse strands never converge. But quite the contrary is true: it comes together in a wonderful, fast-flowing manner to a resolution that is both highly theatrical yet thoroughly credible. Read it many times.
The novel has a series of interlocking stands. In one our anti-heroine, Lizzie, is accused of the murder of John Cree, her husband. In another, John Cree’s diary reveals certain secrets that not only he would have wanted to hide. In a third strand, we learn of Lambeth Marsh Lizzie’s past, how she came to a life in the theatre and how she met her husband. A fourth strand follows the career of Dan Leno, a music hall player, worshipper of the silent clown Grimaldi and mentor of Lizzie’s stage life. And in a fifth strand we see how, in a great city like London, our paths inevitably cross those of great thinkers, writers, artists and, of course, history itself. Peter Ackroyd thus has his characters cross the paths of a writer, George Gissing, and a thinker of note, one Karl Marx, as they tramp the streets of Limehouse after a day at the library.
As usual, sex has a lot to do with the relationships in the book. It is usually on top, but here it also comes underneath and sometimes on the side of events. Mrs Cree is accused of poisoning her husband. Their married life has been far from conventional, but are its inadequacies the motive for a series of brutal killings of prostitutes and others in the Limehouse area? As a result of the curious placement of certain trophies, the killings are attributed in the popular mind to a golem, a mythical creature made of clay that can change it shape at will. Karl Marx examines the Jewish myths surrounding the subject. Others steer clear of the subject.
Lizzie continues on the stage until she meets her husband. She learns much stagecraft from Dan Leno and eventually resolves to help her husband to complete the play over which he has unsuccessfully laboured. When the book’s plot resolves, we are surprised, but then everything makes such perfect sense. And in a real piece of insight, Peter Ackroyd likens the mass murderer to Romaticism perfected, the ultimate triumph of individualism. There is much to stimulate the mind in this thriller.
A reader of this review might suspect that Dan leno And The Limehouse Golem is a difficult read, a book whose diverse strands never converge. But quite the contrary is true: it comes together in a wonderful, fast-flowing manner to a resolution that is both highly theatrical yet thoroughly credible. Read it many times.
October 6, 2017
The play's the thing.
I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for Victorian London fiction, whether it be fiction written at the time by Conan Doyle or Robert Louis Stevenson, or modern takes on it by the likes of Tim Powers, Dan Simmons, Kim Newman or, in this case, Peter Ackroyd.
As in all Ackroyd books, the city itself is a character, and in this one the cast and crew enact a drama while their lives and fortunes intertwine over a period of years. As ever Ackroyd's literary mechanics are flawless, switching between voices seamlessly, whether it be in the form of trial transcripts, diary entries, or the over-arching, all seeing eye of the city itself. The plot moves along equally seamlessly, each cog in the clockwork moving as it must. At times I was greatly reminded of The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde in the way matters unfolded.
Reality and fiction are both at play, and they too are intertwined, as bloody murder is mimicked on pantomine stages, and grotesque pantomine is played out in the streets of Limehouse when the Golem walks abroad.
It's a tour-de-force throughout, and Ackroyd keeps all his balls juggling in the air like one of his music hall performers.
A fine addition to the ranks of Victoriana. I loved it.
I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for Victorian London fiction, whether it be fiction written at the time by Conan Doyle or Robert Louis Stevenson, or modern takes on it by the likes of Tim Powers, Dan Simmons, Kim Newman or, in this case, Peter Ackroyd.
As in all Ackroyd books, the city itself is a character, and in this one the cast and crew enact a drama while their lives and fortunes intertwine over a period of years. As ever Ackroyd's literary mechanics are flawless, switching between voices seamlessly, whether it be in the form of trial transcripts, diary entries, or the over-arching, all seeing eye of the city itself. The plot moves along equally seamlessly, each cog in the clockwork moving as it must. At times I was greatly reminded of The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr Hyde in the way matters unfolded.
Reality and fiction are both at play, and they too are intertwined, as bloody murder is mimicked on pantomine stages, and grotesque pantomine is played out in the streets of Limehouse when the Golem walks abroad.
It's a tour-de-force throughout, and Ackroyd keeps all his balls juggling in the air like one of his music hall performers.
A fine addition to the ranks of Victoriana. I loved it.
July 12, 2025
"The Golem?' He dismissed the term, almost blowing it away as you would an iridescent bubble. 'That's just the easy answer. The funny thing is that people are less scared of a golem than they would be of a real person."
Another great one by Peter Ackroyd, I keep finding more of his books and continue to be surprised by how his knowledge of history spans across themes, time periods and (albeit largely anglophone) cultural phenomena. I am reading this one in a the context of historical trial narratives, rather than its more obvious construction as a murder mystery and massively enjoyed it.
I especially enjoyed Ackroyd's playful interweaving of judicial court proceedings and police investigations with the court of public opinion and the sensational press that gives rise to a mythologized image of the murderer. He cannot help bringing in more metatextual stabs at authenticity and representation by setting a large part of the story in a theatre and peopling his cast with crossdressing comedians. Loved it!
Another great one by Peter Ackroyd, I keep finding more of his books and continue to be surprised by how his knowledge of history spans across themes, time periods and (albeit largely anglophone) cultural phenomena. I am reading this one in a the context of historical trial narratives, rather than its more obvious construction as a murder mystery and massively enjoyed it.
I especially enjoyed Ackroyd's playful interweaving of judicial court proceedings and police investigations with the court of public opinion and the sensational press that gives rise to a mythologized image of the murderer. He cannot help bringing in more metatextual stabs at authenticity and representation by setting a large part of the story in a theatre and peopling his cast with crossdressing comedians. Loved it!
August 24, 2020
Totally read this because of the movie xD
And I absolutely loved it.
It's been awhile since I was interested in this type of reading material. This a macabre tale of who's-done-it intrigue that goes from music hall ambiance to the imminent hanging of Elizabeth Cree.
Peter Ackroyd can certainly paint a picture and he makes Limehouse come alive. I loved all the scenes with a glimpse of Dan Leno and his life. My only gripe would be that at times the story jumps too much from one scene to another and I didn't have time to connect with the characters. But I suppose that's also a ploy to keep the reader from realising who the Golem might be.
Now that I've read the book and seen the movie, I can actually say that the movie is pretty good. But still, nowhere near as good as the way the book paints gory details of the murders and of the suspects.
And I absolutely loved it.
It's been awhile since I was interested in this type of reading material. This a macabre tale of who's-done-it intrigue that goes from music hall ambiance to the imminent hanging of Elizabeth Cree.
Peter Ackroyd can certainly paint a picture and he makes Limehouse come alive. I loved all the scenes with a glimpse of Dan Leno and his life. My only gripe would be that at times the story jumps too much from one scene to another and I didn't have time to connect with the characters. But I suppose that's also a ploy to keep the reader from realising who the Golem might be.
Now that I've read the book and seen the movie, I can actually say that the movie is pretty good. But still, nowhere near as good as the way the book paints gory details of the murders and of the suspects.
December 5, 2012
I enjoyed this novel quite a bit. It reminded me that I do enjoy Ackroyd as an author, and thought that the writing style of this was much more accessible than the previous ones of his I've read. However, it also remined me why I don't read many mystery novels as I found the twist of this one rather obvious from half way through and as such was neither surprised nor shocked by the ending. It also reminded me the trouble with modern authors writing about the Victorian period, as they all seem to spend the first 50 pages or so going on about how much everything smells! I find this to be terribly anachronistic. If people were used to the smells back then, to talk about them just emphasies the difference between the modern reader and the period and creates an artifical barrier between them and the story. But there were also many things I did enjoy about the story. It seemed just the right mix of fact and fiction. Historical characters doing totally made up things, that you could easily see the historical ones doing. I enjoyed his portrayal of Marx and it reminded me that I really do need to find some Gissing to read. The main protagonist Elizabeth seemed quite far removed from the narrative, even when she was being interviewed and telling first person narrative it felt like showmanship, but then she was the consumate actor. Even the title of the book throws attention away from her, the main character and onto the two leading men of the story. I found this a short and enjoyable piece of historical fiction. It gave an interesting account of a side of 19th century living that I don't normally read about. I thought the portrayal of the musical halls was very evocative and reminded me of going and seeing punk drag shows as the level of humour and excitment was very similar. While I guessed the plot I did still enjoy it and would definitely recommend it. I really should read more Ackroyd.
June 5, 2019
No. Nope. When you're contemplating between reading a book and cleaning your atrociously messy apartment and end up choosing the latter... That says a lot about the appeal of the book, doesn't it?
My overall experience was actually very similar than what I had with The Alienist, so you might as well go read that review . The only difference was that Ackroyd's story jumped constantly from one place to another and felt very disjointed. Just when I was getting into a character or a scene, it was switched to something else and left a nasty superficial aftertaste in my mouth.
Once again, I liked the film adaptation more than the book. Which led me to think that maybe I enjoy Victorian (and, more broadly, history) things in visual form, and therefore I should focus on that and actual 19th century novels instead? Then again, there's The Crimson Petal and the White (2002). It can't be the only good one out there. Please tell me it's not just an anomaly!
My overall experience was actually very similar than what I had with The Alienist, so you might as well go read that review . The only difference was that Ackroyd's story jumped constantly from one place to another and felt very disjointed. Just when I was getting into a character or a scene, it was switched to something else and left a nasty superficial aftertaste in my mouth.
Once again, I liked the film adaptation more than the book. Which led me to think that maybe I enjoy Victorian (and, more broadly, history) things in visual form, and therefore I should focus on that and actual 19th century novels instead? Then again, there's The Crimson Petal and the White (2002). It can't be the only good one out there. Please tell me it's not just an anomaly!
September 3, 2017
Travel to LimeshouseStep back in gory times
In the area of Limehouse, a character known as a Golem creating fear. He himself has been created from myths and either described as an artificial being or a Jewish Rabi in the 15th century. Bodies pile up and there are some very dark and gruesome murders which take place in and around the city’s streets. You can run after the Golem, try to catch him, but as soon as you think you might catch him, it vanishes into thin air…
Ohh it's gory and very unsettling and there's talk of those Ratcliffe Highway murders...
July 30, 2019
Peter Ackroyd'u ilk kez okuyorum. İlk yarıda bir miktar hayal kırıklığı hissettiğimi söyleyebilirim; fakat bir yerden sonra merakla, elimden bırakamadan okudum. Mutlaka bir kitabını daha okuyacağım.
September 24, 2019
2.5,rounded up.
I was impelled to read this after seeing the fine film adaptation made from it (The Limehouse Golem), and perhaps had I done it the other way around, I would have seen the novel in a kinder light. But this does appear to be the rare case when the movie is much better than its source material. Ackroyd's book plods along in a pedantic, academic manner, reminiscent of nothing so much as dry Wikipedia entries. The 'surprise' ending isn't much of a surprise in the book, and is handled in a far livelier manner in the film. A disappointment.
I was impelled to read this after seeing the fine film adaptation made from it (The Limehouse Golem), and perhaps had I done it the other way around, I would have seen the novel in a kinder light. But this does appear to be the rare case when the movie is much better than its source material. Ackroyd's book plods along in a pedantic, academic manner, reminiscent of nothing so much as dry Wikipedia entries. The 'surprise' ending isn't much of a surprise in the book, and is handled in a far livelier manner in the film. A disappointment.
May 11, 2018
I was brought to this book following the amazing film that was made from it. I sincerely recommend both.
The strength of the book is similar to what was accomplished by E.L. Doctorow with RAGTIME. Historical people and locations are interwoven into a fictional story brimming with atmospheric energy. The theatrical stage comes alive, the smells and grime of Limehouse seem to surround the Reader, and then there are the serial killings. Jack the Ripper would have taken second place to the Limehouse Golem.
Multiple stories unravel at once, only to be knitted inextricably together by the end. When I’ve encountered this technique in other books, there was usually at least one story that held limited interest for me. That was not the case here.
The one part of the book’s story that found less favor with me is the “reveal” at the opening. The Reader knows the fate of the main character as surely as if the ending had been read before the remainder of the book. Now, having said that, I still liked the twists that followed that ending ... even though I had been aware of them from the film. So, the Reader does know the ending early on ... and doesn’t.
If you are seeking a gothic novel with more than a little spice, surprises galore, plenty of unsettling moments, and truly intriguing characters who will have an influence on real life history, pour a glass of sherry and settle back for a most enjoyable evening.
The strength of the book is similar to what was accomplished by E.L. Doctorow with RAGTIME. Historical people and locations are interwoven into a fictional story brimming with atmospheric energy. The theatrical stage comes alive, the smells and grime of Limehouse seem to surround the Reader, and then there are the serial killings. Jack the Ripper would have taken second place to the Limehouse Golem.
Multiple stories unravel at once, only to be knitted inextricably together by the end. When I’ve encountered this technique in other books, there was usually at least one story that held limited interest for me. That was not the case here.
The one part of the book’s story that found less favor with me is the “reveal” at the opening. The Reader knows the fate of the main character as surely as if the ending had been read before the remainder of the book. Now, having said that, I still liked the twists that followed that ending ... even though I had been aware of them from the film. So, the Reader does know the ending early on ... and doesn’t.
If you are seeking a gothic novel with more than a little spice, surprises galore, plenty of unsettling moments, and truly intriguing characters who will have an influence on real life history, pour a glass of sherry and settle back for a most enjoyable evening.
June 17, 2011
I love Peter Ackroyd, I really do.
Books like this are part of the reason why. Making use of the famous figures of Dan Leno (no, not Jay Leno), Gissing, and Marx among others, Ackroyd weaves a mystery unlike very few.
The story is told though different voices and different prespectives, and the ground always shifts slightly for the reader. And that is the really important thing about Ackroyd, he trusts the reader. He does not treat the reader like an idiot, does not talk down, and inspires curiousity without being annoying.
The book opens with the trial of Elizabeth Cree, who is charged with the murder of her husband. It is not this crime that takes the focus but real murders that according in the Limehouse section of London. In some ways, this book is like Ackroyd's The Clerkenwell Tales, but with a stronger sense of self.
The question at the heart of the book is who the murder of Limehouse is? A golem? Something or someone else? The murders are similar to the Ripper killings which will occurs years later and like the previous Ratcliffe Highway killings (see The Maul And The Pear Tree).
Books like this are part of the reason why. Making use of the famous figures of Dan Leno (no, not Jay Leno), Gissing, and Marx among others, Ackroyd weaves a mystery unlike very few.
The story is told though different voices and different prespectives, and the ground always shifts slightly for the reader. And that is the really important thing about Ackroyd, he trusts the reader. He does not treat the reader like an idiot, does not talk down, and inspires curiousity without being annoying.
The book opens with the trial of Elizabeth Cree, who is charged with the murder of her husband. It is not this crime that takes the focus but real murders that according in the Limehouse section of London. In some ways, this book is like Ackroyd's The Clerkenwell Tales, but with a stronger sense of self.
The question at the heart of the book is who the murder of Limehouse is? A golem? Something or someone else? The murders are similar to the Ripper killings which will occurs years later and like the previous Ratcliffe Highway killings (see The Maul And The Pear Tree).
May 4, 2015
Social historians have long been aware that violent revolution was avoided in Victorian Britain by the huge popularity of music hall, where concepts of gender and class were problematised by transgressive performance artists whose works undermined the assumptions of masculinist industrial socialist trade union discourses. This tradition of subversive speech-acts continued up to the present day in the practices of Kenneth Williams, David Bowie, and Lily Savage. However you only get a small glimpse of it is this rather tiresome and plodding lump of Booker fiction from 20 years ago. As with the overpraised "Hawksmoor", Ackroyd can compile together other people's creations but is unable to catch the bolt of lightning needed to bring the monster to life (that's the sort of grindingly obvious allusion that should appeal to his fanbase) or just find an interesting observation to make about it all. In this dreary text even the clattering appearances of Karl Marx and George Gissing, and references to Charles Babbage and Charlie Chaplin, are to no avail, as the author has nothing to say beyond the blandest Sunday newspaper review cliches. It's not a good psychological thriller either, and the twist is handled quite ineptly.
September 2, 2020
Piter Akroydun başqa janrda kitab yazdığını bilmirdim. Adətən London, İngiltərə barədə olan elmi yazıları qarşıma çıxırdı. Bu dəfə də hadisələri doğma Londonda cərəyan edən tarixi detektivlə qarşılaşırıq. Adətən içlatçı və ya qarındeşən Cek (sevirəm tərcümələrimizi) kimi tanıdığımız caniylə qarşılaşdırılan Qolemi görürük. Qolem özü yəhudi mifologiyasında yer alan gildən yaradılmış nəhəngdir. Cinyətkarın gözə görünməməsi, qurbanların milliyəti, peşəsinə görə digərlərindən fərqlənməsi və onların amansız qətli London əhli arasında qatilin Qolem adı alması ilə nəticələnir. Mən bu yaxınlarda "Qolem" adlı bir filmin ortasına çatdım və baxmağa davam etdim, məndə böyük bir maraq oyatmadı. Kitabın ortasına çatdıqda filmin məhz bu kitabdan yazıldığını anladım. 2017-ci il istehsallı kino orijinalda "The Limehouse Golem" adlanır. Təbii ki, filmdən spoylerimi aldığımdan kitabdan zövq ala bilmədim, yarıladığımdan yarımçıq qoymaq istəmədim. Kitabda adıçəkilən obrazların çoxu real şəxslərdir. Sadə detektivdir, dili rahatdır.
Read
April 9, 2019¿Quién podría imaginarse que en la sala de lectura del Museo Británico, un lugar tan inocuo, podrían gestarse semejantes crímenes?
Londres a finales del siglo XIX en todo su esplendor: pobreza, suciedad, niebla por todas partes, crímenes brutales, bajezas humanas, el music hall , la sordidez... Se sitúa con acierto en 1880 y tiene mucho sabor a Jack el destripador; el Golem es un asesino en serie.
Peter Ackroyd aborda la historia desde el punto de vista de varios narradores en los distintos capítulos: Lizzie, John Cree, e incluso personajes reales como Karl Marx y George Gissing. Y todas las intervenciones van siendo intercaladas con escenas de un juicio (acusan a la protagonista de haber matado a su marido) narradas como si fuera una obra de teatro, pero sin acotaciones escénicas. Nombre de personaje, dos puntos, discurso.
En algunos momentos me costó entrar en la lectura, a mi parecer se narraban partes que no eran determinantes para que la trama avanzase, pero el autor consigue que cuando Londres entra en escena, te sumerjas en sus calles sin remedio.
Un giro final que de algún modo te ves venir, aunque no sepas cómo va a solucionarlo el autor y que es satisfactorio para la resolución de la historia.
Una lectura diferente.
Londres a finales del siglo XIX en todo su esplendor: pobreza, suciedad, niebla por todas partes, crímenes brutales, bajezas humanas, el music hall , la sordidez... Se sitúa con acierto en 1880 y tiene mucho sabor a Jack el destripador; el Golem es un asesino en serie.
Peter Ackroyd aborda la historia desde el punto de vista de varios narradores en los distintos capítulos: Lizzie, John Cree, e incluso personajes reales como Karl Marx y George Gissing. Y todas las intervenciones van siendo intercaladas con escenas de un juicio (acusan a la protagonista de haber matado a su marido) narradas como si fuera una obra de teatro, pero sin acotaciones escénicas. Nombre de personaje, dos puntos, discurso.
En algunos momentos me costó entrar en la lectura, a mi parecer se narraban partes que no eran determinantes para que la trama avanzase, pero el autor consigue que cuando Londres entra en escena, te sumerjas en sus calles sin remedio.
Un giro final que de algún modo te ves venir, aunque no sepas cómo va a solucionarlo el autor y que es satisfactorio para la resolución de la historia.
Una lectura diferente.
July 14, 2022
Peter Ackroyd's The Trial of Elizabeth Cree (known in Britain as Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem) is the tale of a Jack the Ripper type of murderer, and the people connected in one form or another with the murderer, including John and Elizabeth ("Lambeth Marsh Lizzie") Cree, their maid Aveline, music hall comic Dan Leno, Karl Marx, and novelist George Gissing. Even Oscar Wilde puts in a brief appearance.
In the process of telling the tale, Ackroyd gives us a cross-section of the poor of the Limehouse District of London as well as of the English Music Hall of the period. Lambeth Marsh Lizzie finds herself on the stage and appears to have a brilliant career ahead of her ... until she decides to get married.
In the process of telling the tale, Ackroyd gives us a cross-section of the poor of the Limehouse District of London as well as of the English Music Hall of the period. Lambeth Marsh Lizzie finds herself on the stage and appears to have a brilliant career ahead of her ... until she decides to get married.
September 3, 2017
Thank you Vintage publishing for a copy of this book. I really don’t know to start this review. Set in the late Victorian era in London between the filth, music halls and prostitution Elizabeth Cree is arrested for murdering her husband John Cree. The story tells of what happens before. Firstly, Elizabeth who was previously Lambeth marsh Lizzie and Comedian Dan Leno and their life in the music halls. And The macabre tale of a murderer called the Lime House Golem. There is also other characters in this story that are real life, like Karl Marx and Charles Babbage.
The author has expertly written this story. That, makes you feel like you are there in that era. I just thought that the story got a bit confusing in the middle and because of this I got a bit bored. I really wanted to like this book, as I have seen the trailer of the film that is based on this book and it’s looks good. 3 stars for me.
The author has expertly written this story. That, makes you feel like you are there in that era. I just thought that the story got a bit confusing in the middle and because of this I got a bit bored. I really wanted to like this book, as I have seen the trailer of the film that is based on this book and it’s looks good. 3 stars for me.
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