The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Before his murder in 1831, the Italian Boy was one of thousands of orphans on the streets of London, moving among the livestock, hawkers, and con men, begging for pennies. Once dead, his value increased: As a highly prized "Fresh Subject" bound for the anatomist's or surgeon's table, he was sold to a medical college by the men who killed him. Their high-profile arrest and trial would unveil London's furtive trade in human corpses, carried out by body-snatchers - or "resurrection men" - who robbed graves and even murdered to supply the lucrative market for cadavers. After all, a well-preserved body could fetch as much as nine guineas, the yearly salary of a working man." At once a historical thriller and a social history, The Italian Boy meticulously reconstructs the hour-by-hour activities of the body snatchers, investigates the mysterious identity of the anonymous boy, and traces the labyrinthine twists and turns of a case that would engage society from the wealthy to the most hopeless and helpless. In the process, historian Sarah Wise draws a picture of the chaos and squalor of the city that swallowed the fourteen-year-old vagrant: In 1831, London's poor were displaced and desperate; the wealthy were terrified, the population swelling so fast that old class borders could not possibly hold. All the while, early humanitarians were pushing legislation to protect the disenfranchised, the courts were establishing norms of punishment and execution, and doctors were pioneering the science of human anatomy.
FROM THE CRITICS
Louis Bayard - The Washington Post
To these sordid doings Wise brings a cool and unembarrassed eye. She refrains from moralizing or pressing her points too hard, and she is admirably forthright about the problems she faces, among them contradictory testimony and a porous historical record (much of it salvaged from contemporary newspaper accounts). A reader soon realizes that the Italian Boy trial provides just enough material to fill a Smithsonian magazine article. This means that Wise, like a harassed docent, must strap us in for lengthy (never boring) digressions on London life: phrenology, Tory politics, wife-selling, slaughterhouses, urban scams, the travails of the newly established Metropolitan Police.
Publishers Weekly
British historian Wise's well-written first book explores the grisly underbelly of pre-Victorian London by examining the trial of three "body snatchers," John Bishop, James May and Thomas Williams, who were arrested in 1831 while attempting to sell the suspiciously fresh cadaver of a teenage boy to a medical college. Drawing on astonishingly detailed research, Wise places the crime in context by describing how a shadowy "resurrection" trade in exhumed bodies had grown up to meet the rising demand of the new science of anatomy. She explains how various Londoners, including several Italians, testified that a hat found at Bishop's home matched that of a recently vanished Italian boy peddler. Soon the new London police force was sleuthing its way to the bottom of a case that caused widespread alarm and a media circus in a city notorious for its numbers of missing persons. Wise energetically explicates every twist of the evidence with fascinating detours into the wider social context of newly vulnerable urban family life, punitive poor laws and fragmented philanthropy. Biographies of the trio of body snatchers demystify the Victorian criminal. Wise's deft prose contributes vastly to our understanding of pre-Victorian London's everyday street life, districts, trades, policing, prisons and press. Meanwhile, she skillfully manages the narrative, keeping her story gripping without sensationalizing it. Generously illustrated, this is a macabre yet historically serious work, invaluable to anyone interested in the truth of London's gory past. Agent, John Saddler, U.K. (June 1) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In her debut book, Wise, a journalist and historian of Victorian England, reconstructs the murder of one of the thousands of orphans on the streets of London in 1831. During that time of great change in this major city, a trade in human bodies existed; it was considered a "revolting but potentially lucrative" profession. A group of men called resurrectionists took bodies from graves and homes and sold them to medical colleges to be used in dissection. Anatomy teachers relied on authorities to ignore this illegal trafficking of corpses. It was soon revealed, however, that some resurrectionists would resort to killing paupers, receiving more pay for fresher bodies. Much of the book depicts the trial of three men accused of killing, or "burking," a poverty-stricken Italian boy living on the streets. The medical colleges, quietly complicit in the trade of bodies, responded to the murder by simply pushing for the passage of a bill making the bodies of deceased paupers legally available, thus ending the practice of burking. Victorian attitudes, morality, and the intricacies of the justice system are also covered in this unusual book. Recommended for larger public libraries with special collections in Victorian history.-Isabel Coates, CCRA-Toronto West Tax Office, Mississauga, Ont. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Making good use of scant information, Wise chronicles one of the most celebrated crimes of the 19th century, perpetrated by the dreaded "Resurrection Men." These were grave robbers engaged in the lucrative practice of providing London's medical schools with cadavers for dissection. As demand exceeded supply, some turned to homicide, especially since the freshest bodies brought the highest reward. By the end of the book, readers have gained knowledge of the controversial creation of Robert Peal's "bobbies," the primitive origins of crime-scene investigation, and the conduct of British jury trials of the period. The author describes the exponential growth of the city in the first third of the 19th century, the precarious economic situation of the lower population strata, and the poverty and filth that so appalled later Victorians and led them to take corrective action. She explains why Italian boys-and many other children-called the streets of London home and why the poor were perpetual crime victims. This engrossing and suspenseful blending of sociology, history, and true crime will appeal to both researchers and casual readers.-Dori DeSpain, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
Journalist/historian Wise debuts with a highly atmospheric account of corpse-trafficking and -killing in early-19th-century London. Purloining cadavers for the medical colleges of London, the body-snatchers, grave-robbers, and resurrection men soon learned that the freshest bodies commanded the highest price; it was almost inevitable, then, that some of these disturbers of the dead would undertake to actively create their retail items. Such was the case with the 14-year-old boy whose 1831 death prompts Wise's stately, richly descriptive narrative. While she takes care to lay out all the particulars of the crime at hand, the author is also interested in its context and ramifications. She explores the history of London's poor, the evolution of vagrancy acts and charitable societies, the dire economic situation created by low wages, high unemployment, and corrupt parochial authorities-all of which fueled the growing threat of an insurrectionary working class. The Italian boys who began to appear on London's streets were "victims of organized child-trafficking [sold into] a sort of beggar's apprenticeship." Helped along by numerous reproductions of paintings, prints, and photographs, Wise evokes tumultuous 1830s London: overrun by swarms of rural immigrants, overwhelmed by hideous overcrowding, unsettled by the dismantling of an apprentice system that traditionally gave workers some security, fouled by inadequate sanitation that allowed disease to spread from street to tavern to home. The tiny, odd domiciles in the slum of slums known as Nova Scotia Gardens were workshops for the urban desperate. The horrific Smithfield animal market gave birth to the first anticruelty laws, and the culturalsea change that equated humanitarianism with respectability spelled the doom of the resurrection men, writes Wise. Their association with the killers also brought down a preening class of surgeons who thought themselves exempt from the moral question of just where those stiffs came from. A fine historical and social reconstruction of a vile crime. (Illustrations throughout)
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