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The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary
Simon Winchester · back to the book
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24 books with the same feel
Include books by the same authorThunderstruck
Erik Larson · 480 pages
A true story of love, murder, and the end of the world's "great hush." In Thunderstruck, Erik Larson tells the interwoven stories of two men--Hawley Crippen, a very unlikely murderer, and Guglielmo Marconi, the obsessive creator of a seemingly supernatural means of communication--whose lives intersect during one of the greatest criminal chases of all time.Set in Edwardian London and on the stormy
The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper
Hallie Rubenhold · 352 pages
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper - Case Closed
Patricia Cornwell · 387 pages
"Between August and November 1888, at least seven women were murdered in London's Whitechapel area. The gruesome nature of their deaths caused panic and fear in the East End for months, and gave rise to the sobriquet that was to become shorthand for a serial killer - Jack the Ripper.". "For over a hundred years the murders have remained among the world's greatest unsolved crimes, and a wealth o
Broadmoor Revealed: Victorian Crime and the Lunatic Asylum
Mark Stevens · 192 pages
Scotland Yard: A History of the London Police Force's Most Infamous Murder Cases
Simon Read · 480 pages
Mr Briggs' Hat: A Sensational Account of Britain's First Railway Murder
Kate Colquhoun · 339 pages
The Complete History of Jack the Ripper
Philip Sugden · 541 pages
The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer
Kate Summerscale · 378 pages
In East London in the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age thirteen) and his brother Nattie (age twelve) were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. The judge sentenced him to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Shockingly, Broadmoor turned out t
Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee
Casey Cep · 314 pages
The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime
Judith Flanders · 556 pages
In this exploration of murder in the nineteenth century, Judith Flanders explores some of the most gripping cases that fascinated the Victorians and gave rise to the first detective fiction. She retells the gruesome stories of many different types of murder--both famous and obscure--from the crimes (and myths) of Sweeney Todd and Jack the Ripper to the tragedies of the murdered Marr family in Lon
They All Love Jack: Busting the Ripper
Bruce Robinson · 850 pages
A reinterpretation of the case of Jack the Ripper focuses on the "why" instead of the "who," theorizing that the residents of London society's finest homes created him as an outlet for their own hidden violent and taboo proclivities.
The Bell Tower: The Case of Jack the Ripper Finally Solved... in San Francisco
Robert Graysmith · 552 pages
The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London
Sarah Wise · 387 pages
Describes the 1831 murder of a young vagrant and the sale of his body to a London medical college, a case that led to the arrest of his killers, "resurrection men" who acted to satisfy the demand for fresh cadavers for the study of human anatomy.
Babel: Or the Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators' Revolution
R F Kuang · 560 pages
From award-winning author R. F. Kuang comes Babel, a thematic response to The Secret History and a tonal retort to Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell that grapples with student revolutions, colonial resistance, and the use of language and translation as the dominating tool of the British empire. Traduttore, traditore: An act of translation is always an act of betrayal. 1828. Robin Swift, orphane
The Complete Jack the Ripper
Donald Rumbelow · 305 pages
Discover the theories and facts surrounding the Whitechapel murders in David Rumbelow's The Complete Jack the Ripper... It is 1888 in London's Whitechapel district, where one by one a group of prostitutes are brutally murdered. Opium smoking Inspector Fred Abberline is called upon to investigate these horrific murders and through his visions track down and trap Jack the Ripper. David Rumbelow's ca
A Pickpocket's Tale: The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York
Timothy J. Gilfoyle · 480 pages
A Pickpocket's Tale is a fascinating true-crime story. Gilfoyle uses George Appo's unpublished memoirs to re-create the world of the nineteenth-century criminal in astonishing detail. George Appo was half Irish, half Chinese who became a pickpocket at the tender age of twelve. he was first arrested at age fourteen and sentenced to a year on a prison ship for juvenile offenders served . In and out
Newton and the Counterfeiter: The Unknown Detective Career of the World's Greatest Scientist
Thomas Levenson · 318 pages
Already famous throughout Europe for his theories of planetary motion and gravity, Isaac Newton decided to take on the job of running the Royal Mint. This is a compelling book about crime, science and money, and transforms our image of Britain's greatest scientist.
The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief
Ben Macintyre · 320 pages
The Victorian era's most infamous thief, Adam Worth was the original Napoleon of crime. Worth learned early that the best way to succeed was to steal. And steal he did. Following a strict code of honor, Worth won the respect of Victorian society. He also aroused its fear by becoming a chilling phantom, mingling undetected with the upper classes, whose valuables he brazenly stole. His most celebrat
Death at the Priory: Love, Sex, and Murder in Victorian England
James Ruddick · 209 pages
Details the unsolved murder of attorney Charles Bravo, a cruel man who tormented his wife Florence, in a mystery that paints a portrait of Victorian culture and one woman's fight to exist in this repressive society.
The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth
Ruth S. Noel, J.R.R. Tolkien · 207 pages
Presents a comprehensive pocket guide to the fourteen languages of Tolkien's Middle-Earth and contains a dictionary and English/Elvish glossary, rules of grammar and pronunciation, and how to write the Elvish alphabet.
Bedlam: London and its Mad
Catharine Arnold · 313 pages
Catharine Arnold takes us on a tour of Bedlam and examines London's attitude to madness along the way. We travel through the ages, from the barbaric `exorcisms' of the medieval period to the Tudor belief that a roast mouse, eaten whole, was the cure. We see the reforming zeal of eighteenth century campaigners and the development of the massive Victorian asylums. This was the era of the private mad
Georgette Heyer's Regency World
Jennifer Kloester · 381 pages
This book recreates Georgette Heyer's most enchanting characters and their most memorable scenes in the locations in which they actually took place, guiding the reader through them in a series of tours.
The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic
Darby Penney, Peter Stastny · 206 pages
Foreword / Robert Whitaker -- 1. He took them on their last walk -- 2. Who were the people that went to Willard and why did they go there? --3. How I would have furnished my room (if not for the voices) -- 4. In permanent limbo: she kept asking for dispensation (until her doctor turned into the devil incarnate) -- 5. Children were buried and she knit her life away -- 6. Like a fly in a spider web