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The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-robbery in 1830s London
 
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The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-robbery in 1830s London (Hardcover)

by Sarah Wise (Author)
4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
RRP: £17.99
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 372 pages
  • Publisher: Jonathan Cape Ltd; First edition edition (6 May 2004)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0224071769
  • ISBN-13: 978-0224071765
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 3.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 108,628 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Matthew Sweet, Sunday Times, May 2004
'Wise can take credit for the least smug and self-congratulatory book ever written on 19th-century slum life.'

Peter Ackroyd, The Times, May 2004
`A work of great skill and sympathy... Shines a great light upon the lives of the very poor. For any student of the city and its secret life, it is indispensable reading.'

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What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-robbery in 1830s London
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Customer Reviews

8 Reviews
5 star:
 (5)
4 star:
 (3)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.6 out of 5 stars (8 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars More than a good melodrama, excellent well told history, 13 Jun 2008
By Stewart Murray McRorie "Willoughby" (La Bussiere Sur Ouche, Cote d'Or France) - See all my reviews
  
This is my second reading of Sara Wise's excellent book. For several years, it has been a standard stocking filler present for my friends. Curiously, I am strongly adverse to the endless, voyeuristic, procession of books, movies and TV drama where gory murders are cleverly committed and habitually solved (in about 200 pages or 49 minutes plus commercial breaks). It is thematically tedious and depressing in equal measure. The Italian Boy is very much more than a good "who dunnit" although it reads like one. The cliché is correct, fact - well told - is stranger than fiction and much more interesting.

The book is rooted in the slums of 1830s London, where body snatchers decided it was worth murdering to meet the needs of medical science. Wise systematically inserts the factual details. Some 500 students required three bodies to dissect during their 16-month training. Not enough criminals were being hanged and donors were inadequate. Stealing freshly buried bodies was risky; even then, not enough to meet supply. At a guinea a corpse, the business was very lucrative. It occurred to some that many wretched people would not be missed. This is a very well structured book, not merely as a commentary on the poor in London but as a detailed insight into police methods, forensic science and the legal process. You sense what Newgate prison was like. Then there is the evolution of medical training, these surgeons did not have clean ethical hands. We are reminded of what is possibly better forgotten. This was a brutal world, arguably better to have been a slave picking cotton than an unskilled labourer in what was then the largest and richest city in the world. This book is not a lecture; it is an easily followed insight showing why much of Victorian London was a hellish place.

While reading the book I bought the relevant Victorian Ordinance survey maps of London. It complemented the text; these maps are absorbing and as evocative as any Gustave Dore print. Many of the places, bricks and mortar, still stand. This book is a primer for further reading. Where Dickens presented colourful characters, Wise has the gagging odours of the Smithfield meat market coming to life. In passing the book also provides a good economic insight; the commercial life of London is well entrenched in the account.

What Wise has achieved is to produce an exceptionally good story based on detailed historical research. You could not have made it up, it would have read as a tawdry Victorian melodrama. It stands as a serious commentary on Victorian London. So many academics (and their publishers) - who seem to define the quality of their work by the size of their footnotes - should realise intellectual credibility is not risked by writing such competent narrative history.
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17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars London's Burke and Hare, 1 Jun 2004
By A Customer
Sarah Wise has written a well reseached account of the arrest and trial of a gang of London body snatchers who took to providing their own fresh bodies by murdering them. The story of their activities is interspersed with sections on a whole range of subjects relating in particular to the urban poor from which both the killers and their victims came. There is also an insight into the geography of London in the early 1830's and although many of the locations have their modern equivilent the character of them is frequently very different. I would recommend the book to anyone interested in pre-Victorian London, crime and punishment or the New Police.
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14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Top quality history, 13 Jun 2004
By H. Brookman "coorong" (West Sussex) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
A well-written history of Regency London low-life.Centering on the gruesome history of the grave-robbers supplying London's medical schools- some of whom found it more convenient to hasten the demise of the subject and not bother with that tiresome disinterment- the author in turn examines aspects of Regency London- drink, the legal system, architecture and public works, cruelty to animals- it's all there in a fascinating history of the London streets that we walk today.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars The Italian Boy
An excellent insight into the social history and mores of the time. Well written, and well researched.
Published 8 days ago by J. D. Morley

5.0 out of 5 stars A must read for all those interested in grave robbers
What makes this book marvelous is not just the excellent research about the subject matter - which, lets face it, is not one that many people are instinctively drawn to - but the... Read more
Published on 13 April 2007 by A. M. Quinn

4.0 out of 5 stars Real Historical event reconstructed, London 1831 - The Story of the Italian Boy
The Italian boy was one of a thousand of orphans living on the London streets in 1831, amongst the poor in company of con artist, beggars and prostitutes. Read more
Published on 20 Aug 2006 by Andrea Bowhill

5.0 out of 5 stars The Italian Boy
What an excellent book. Thoughly researched with an indepth look at the social history of the time. Read more
Published on 2 Feb 2006 by C. C. Jolly

5.0 out of 5 stars Gripping!
I was gripped by this page turner of a book about murder and grave robbery in London. If you are interested in reading about crime and murder you will love this book.
Published on 29 Mar 2005 by lilysmum

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