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  • Robinson
  • Little, Brown Audio

The Battered Body Beneath the Flagstones, and Other Victorian Scandals

Michelle Morgan

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Modern period, c 1500 onwards, True crime, Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900

A grisly compendium of crimes, perversions and outrages of Victorian England, covering high-profile scandals as well as other lesser-known transgressions.

'Ghoulishly entertaining' Jacqueline Banerjee, Times Literary Supplement

'This is a great book for dipping into . . . the cases themselves are written engagingly and with appealing dramatisation of key events.'
Kim Fleet, Crime Review

A grisly book dedicated to the crimes, perversions and outrages of Victorian England, covering high-profile offences - such as the murder of actor William Terriss, whose stabbing at the stage door of the Adelphi Theatre in 1897 filled the front pages for many weeks - as well as lesser-known transgressions that scandalised the Victorian era.

The tales include murders and violent crimes, but also feature scandals that merely amused the Victorians. These include the story of a teenage man who married an actress, only to be shipped off to Australia by his disgusted parents; and the Italian ice-cream man who only meant to buy his sweetheart a hat but ended up proposing marriage instead. When he broke it off, his fiancee's father sued him and the story was dubbed the 'Amusing Aberdeen Breach of Promise Case'. Also present is the gruesome story of the murder of Patrick O Connor who was shot in the head and buried under the kitchen flagstones by his lover Maria Manning and her husband, Frederick. The couple's subsequent trial caused a sensation and even author Charles Dickens attended the grisly public hanging.

Drawing on a range of sources from university records and Old Bailey transcripts to national and regional newspaper archives, Michelle Morgan's research sheds new light on well-known stories as well as unearthing previously unknown incidents.

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Michelle Morgan

MICHELLE MORGAN is the author or co-author of nine books about Marilyn Monroe, including Marilyn Monroe: Private and Undisclosed. Rights in Michelle's books have sold to Russia, Poland, Bulgaria, South Korea and Macedonia. She has written for magazines and newspapers, including Yours Retro, Sunday Express, The Lady, Big Issue, Emirates Woman, Writing Magazine, Social and Personal and Yoga Magazine. Michelle lives in Northamptonshire.

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