Jason Furman's Reviews > Murder by the Book: A Sensational Chapter in Victorian Crime

Murder By the Book is a true crime account of what, according to the author, was one of the most sensational murders in 19th century London: that of Lord William Russell by his valet, François Courvoisier. Claire Harman documents the night of the murder, the crime itself (his throat was cut presumably while he was sleeping), the investigation, trial, hanging and aftermath. This is interspersed with an account of the role that William Harrison Ainsworth's novel Jack Shephard played in inspiring the murder, by depicting a criminal as a hero in a genre then known as Newgate novels. Different pirated versions of Jack Shephard were also playing as plays simultaneously at multiple London theaters. Another writer who also wrote a book that depicted the criminal life plays a big role in Harman's book, Charles Dickens. He was at pains to distinguish Oliver Twist from the "Newgate" label, according to Harman after the criticism of the entire genre made more of an effort to distance himself from it in future novels (starting with Barnaby Rudge which was writing at the time), and thus he diverged from Ainsworth with two initially parallel novelists going very different directions in their abilities and history's memory of them. Dickens himself was very absorbed by the entire genre, writing letters to the editor about it, going to the execution (an event that features prominently in his biographies), partly turning it into fiction, and then into an argument against public executions.

Overall, the book was relatively short and interesting, steeped in its time, murder, Victorian London, and the early part of Dickens's career. But the links between the murder and the book were a little weak and not every detail was equally interesting.