The New York Times
''A volume which must henceforth be the cornerstone of any library of crime.''


Joyce Carol Oates
''Intelligence, skepticism, and a flair for old-fashioned storytelling.''


Book Description
Dorothy Sayers called William Roughead ''the best showman who ever stood before the door of the chamber of horrors,'' and his true crime stories, written for the most part in the early part of the last century, are indeed among the glories of the genre. Displaying a meticulous command of evidence and unerring dramatic flair, Roughead employs a brilliantly restrained, cooly ironic style to bring to life some of the most notorious crimes and extraordinary trials of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England and Scotland. And wonderfully engrossing as they are, these accounts of premeditated mayhem and miscarried justice also cast an exact and powerful light on the evil that human beings, and human institutions, find it both pleasant contemplate, and all too easy to do.


About the Author
William Roughead (1870-1952) was born in Edinburgh, where he studied law and became an expert on criminology. Between 1889 and 1949 he attended every murder trial of significance held in the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, publishing his accounts of them in a series of bestselling books. He held the legal title of Writer to His Majesty's Signet and was an editor of ''the Notable British Trials Series.''

SYNOPSIS

Dorothy Sayers called William Roughead the best showman who ever stood before the door of the chamber of horrors, and his true crime stories, written for the most part in the early part of the last century, are indeed among the glories of the genre. Displaying a meticulous command of evidence and unerring dramatic flair, Roughead employs a brilliantly restrained, coolly ironic style to bring to life some of the most notorious crimes and extraordinary trials of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England and Scotland. And wonderfully engrossing as they are, these accounts of premeditated mayhem and miscarried justice also cast an exact and powerful light on the evil that human beings, and human institutions, find it both pleasant to contemplate, and all too easy to do.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
William Roughead (1870-1952) was born in Edinburgh, where he studied law and became an expert on criminology. Between 1889 and 1949 he attended every murder trial of significance held in the High Court of Justiciary in Edinburgh, publishing his accounts of them in a series of bestselling books. He held the legal title of Writer to His Majesty's Signet and was an editor of the Notable British Trials Series.

FROM THE CRITICS

Joyce Carol Oates

Intelligence, skepticism, and a flair for old-fashioned storytelling.

The New York Times

A volume which must henceforth be the cornerstone of any library of crime.

San Francisco Chronicle