The best-selling titles were the most sensational true-crime stories. In the years just before the murder, new printing methods had made books cheap and abundant, the novel form was on the rise, and suddenly everyone was reading.
The missing clue, it turned out, lay in the unlikeliest place: what Courvoisier had been reading. The police suspected Russell's valet, Courvoisier, but the evidence was weak.
The brutal murder had the whole city talking. In May 1840, Lord William Russell, well known in London's highest social circles, was found with his throat cut. A page-turner that can hold its own with any one of the many murder-minded podcasts out there."įrom the acclaimed biographer-the fascinating, little-known story of a Victorian-era murder that rocked literary London, leading Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, and Queen Victoria herself to wonder: Can a novel kill? Gripping and eye-opening, Murder by the Book is the untold true story of a surprisingly literary crime."Enthralling. Bringing together much previously unpublished material from a wide range of sources, Claire Harman reveals the story of the notorious Russell murder case and its fascinating connections with the writers and literary culture of the day. Several of the key literary figures of the day, including Dickens and Thackeray, were drawn into the controversy, and when Lord William's murderer claimed to having been inspired by the season's most sensational novel, it seemed that a great deal more was on trial than anyone could have guessed. The whole of London, from monarch to street urchins, was gripped by the gory details of the Russell murder, but behind it was another story, a work of fiction, and a fierce debate about censorship and morality. Her elderly master, Lord William Russell, was lying in bed with his throat cut so deeply that the head was almost severed. Early in the morning of, on an ultra-respectable Mayfair street, a footman answered the door to a panic-stricken maid from a nearby house.
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Murder by the Book by Claire Harman, read by Andy Secombe. Categories Adult Fiction, Crime, Thriller and Mysteries
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