The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London - Softcover

Wise, Sarah

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0805078495 ISBN 13: 9780805078497

Verlag: Holt Paperbacks, 2005

Inhaltsangabe

"A work of great skill and sympathy, a meditation on one of the sorrowful mysteries once to be found on the streets of London. For any student of the city and its secret life, it is indispensable reading."
-Peter Ackroyd, The Times (London)

Before his murder in 1831, the "Italian boy" was one of thousands of orphans on the streets of London, begging among the livestock, hawkers, and con men. When his body was sold to a medical college, the suppliers were arrested for murder. Their high-profile trial would unveil a furtive trade in human corpses carried out by "resurrection men" who killed to satisfy the first rule of the cadaver market: the fresher the body, the higher the price.

Historian Sarah Wise reconstructs not only the boy's murder but the chaos and squalor of his world. In 1831 London, the poor were desperate and the wealthy petrified, the population swelling so fast that class borders could not hold. All the while, early humanitarians were attempting to protect the disenfranchised, the courts were establishing norms of punishment, and doctors were pioneering the science of anatomy.

As vivid and intricate as a novel by Charles Dickens, The Italian Boy restores to history the lives of the very poorest Londoners and offers an unparalleled account of England's great metropolis at the brink of a major transformation.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

A historian of Victorian England, Sarah Wise has written for The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday, and several magazines. The Italian Boy is her first book. She lives in London.

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From The Italian Boy:

Urban poverty, so often a disgusting and harrowing sight to the respectable, could also be a source of wonder and intrigue. A beggar with a certain look, or air, or "act," could feed on city dwellers' craving for novelty and display. To London's grimmest streets, to a population with little access to books or periodicals, and no access to parks, zoos, galleries, or museums—Italian boys brought music, intriguing objects, and strange animals, plus, in many cases, their own beauty. The economies of the Italian states had been devastated by the Napoleonic Wars and throughout the 1820s there was large-scale migration, with many Italian artisans moving to northern European cities to pursue their trades. While later in the century Italian street children would be known for playing musical instruments and dancing, until the mid-1830s their principal source of income was exhibiting small animals as well as wax and plaster figures. The objects and creatures were rented out to the boys each morning by padroni who ran the trade. All in all, Italy was providing London with a better class of vagrant. The pathos an Italian boy evoked could earn his master six or seven shillings a day. Dead—and apparently murdered to supply the surgeons—his appeal only seemed to increase.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Holt Paperbacks
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2005
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0805078495
• ISBN 13: 9780805078497
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 400
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar