"A Handbook on Hanging" is Charles Duff's tribute to that most despised public servant, the executioner, and to his 'art'. In his treatise on judicial killing, whether it is by electrocution, hanging or gassing, Duff writes with deceptive levity about botched executions, the bloodlust of witnesses, innocent victims and a legal system that demands retribution. The result is a stunning satire of capital punishment, a polemic that reveals the hypocrisy and self-delusion inherent in a society that demands 'an eye for an eye' yet strives to make state-sponsored killing humane.
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About the Author
Charles Duff (1894-1966) was a brilliant linguist and worked for the British Foreign Service. He translated, amongst others, the work of Zola and Gorky.
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First Sentence
IT HAS BEEN, and still is, a matter of opinion whether, if you wish to kill your undesirable, it is better to let him die quietly in a concentration camp, flay him until he dies, hurl him over a precipice, burn, drown, or suffocate him; or entomb him alive and leave him to perish slowly in the silence of his grave; or asphyxiate him agonizingly in a lethal chamber, or press him to death or cut off his head; or produce a sort of coma by means of an electric current that grills him in parts and then, in the name of autopsy, permit the doctors to finish him off-as they do in certain of the United States of North America; or break his neck in strangulation by hanging as the English do. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
IT HAS BEEN, and still is, a matter of opinion whether, if you wish to kill your undesirable, it is better to let him die quietly in a concentration camp, flay him until he dies, hurl him over a precipice, burn, drown, or suffocate him; or entomb him alive and leave him to perish slowly in the silence of his grave; or asphyxiate him agonizingly in a lethal chamber, or press him to death or cut off his head; or produce a sort of coma by means of an electric current that grills him in parts and then, in the name of autopsy, permit the doctors to finish him off-as they do in certain of the United States of North America; or break his neck in strangulation by hanging as the English do. Read the first page
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
By "avenger-60"
Format:Paperback
It would be easy for a casual reader, especially a reader unused to the satirical tradition, to misunderstand this book. Charles Duff's book spends much of its time pretending to be a defence of capital punishment, the better to draw attention to its barbarity, and the wickedness of the arguments enlisted in its support.
Duff himself was a linguist by profession, and wrote a number of useful textbooks on various European languages. (He was especially expert in Spanish, and wrote a study of the classic author Quevedo.) He also wrote a work, "This Human Nature", in the tradition of Winwood Reade's "The Martyrdom Of Man" and H. G. Wells's "A Short History Of The World".
The present book is the work of a civilised, scholarly and humane man. His wit, and it is considerable, is always in the service of his unassuageable anger at the cruelty and pointlessness of capital punishment. When the mask of satire drops, he is often very moving.
The style will strike younger modern readers as quaint. Also, like George Orwell's classic essay "A Hanging", or Arthur Koestler's "Reflections On Hanging", the work, despite its occasional appeal to once-current statistics, will seem, by comparison with modern studies, decidedly unrigorous. It is, however, the work of a great humanitarian. Given that capital punishment remains a regrettable feature of the contemporary United States, the issue is by no means an historical one, even in the developed world.
By R. M. M.
Format:Paperback
A well written and compelling satire. I enjoyed it even though my point of view is very different. Perhaps I have given it fewer stars than it objectively deserves - but no-one is objective on this issue.
Format:Paperback
An readable argument against state execution which puts it's case across well. Some may find the book dated, but it was written in the 1920's!
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3.3 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Swiftian Satire
It would be easy for a casual reader, especially a reader unfamiliar with the satirical tradition, to misunderstand this book. Read more
Published on 12 May 2003 by "avenger-60"
5.0 out of 5 stars
... This is satire
This was/is a polemical tract in the successful campaign to abolish the death penalty in Britain. Because of problems in the implementation of the death penalty - most notably in... Read more
Published on 8 Jun 2002
1.0 out of 5 stars
A great disappointment
The book was to me a great disappointment in that it treated the whole subject of execution purely as a vehicle for the authors 'wit' (and I use the word 'Wit' with some... Read more
Published on 18 Mar 2001 by Brian Peter Gower
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