The Invention of Murder

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The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders: 1. The Ratcliffe Highway Murders

1. The Ratcliffe Highway Murders

The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders

BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Invention of Murder by Judith Flanders, 1. The Ratcliffe Highway Murders

How the Victorians turned violent crime into entertainment.

The Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 - how the Victorians turned violent crime into entertainment. Read by Robert Glenister.

"We are a trading community - a commercial people. Murder is, doubtless, a very shocking offence; nevertheless, as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it." Punch, 1842

Over the course of the 19th century, murder - in reality a rarity - became ubiquitous: transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama.

Seeing therein the foundation of modern notions of crime, Judith Flanders explores this fascination with deadly violence by relating some of the century's most gripping and gruesome cases and the ways in which they were commercially exploited.

The Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811 were particularly dreadful: two separate sets of killings in which seven people lost their lives. It was a case that shocked the nation - this was half as many people as had been murdered in the entire previous year throughout England and Wales - and forced the establishment to rethink the policing of major cities.

Written by Judith Flanders.

Read by Robert Glenister.

Abridged in five parts by David Jackson Young.

Producer:  Kirsteen Cameron  

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2011.

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Robert Glenister reads Judith Flanders' book on the Victorian obsession with violent crime

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