The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London
By Sarah Wise
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
A thrilling history of England's great metropolis at a point of great change, told through the story of a young vagrant murdered by "resurrection men"
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. When his body was sold to a London medical college, the suppliers were arrested for murder. Their high-profile trial would unveil London's furtive trade in human corpses carried out by body-snatchers--or "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 London that swallowed the fourteen-year-old vagrant long before his corpse appeared on the slab. In 1831, the city's poor were desperate and the wealthy were petrified, 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.
Vivid and intricate, The Italian Boy restores to history the lives of the very poorest Londoners and offers an unparalleled account of the sights, sounds, and smells of a city at the brink of a major transformation.
Sarah Wise
Sarah Wise is a social historian and visiting professor at the University of California's London Study Centre. Her previous books include Inconvenient People: Lunacy, Liberty and the Mad-Doctors in Victorian England and The Blackest Streets: The Life and Death of a Victorian Slum. Her new website misssarahwise.co.uk lists the dates and venues where she will be speaking about The Undesirables – plus links to some of her other, shorter, writings and a list of her history and literature courses. Follow Sarah on Twitter/X: @misssarahwise.
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Reviews for The Italian Boy
8 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Story of the murder of a boy in London to sell his body to the anatomy schools. Wonderful research & writing. Anecdotal history at its best.Read Aug 2006
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This is a historical non-fiction/true crime book about a trial in 1830's London. After was found that a couple of professional bodysnatchers had decided there wasn't enough trade in already dead people, and had decided to speed things up, legislation that automatically donated the unclaimed bodies of poor people to teaching hospitals and anatomy schools was passed, putting graverobbers out of business. The book covers the investigation and trial of the case, and sums up the aftermath. I promise the book is much more interesting than my little description there.
It's an interesting era in English history to read about, just before Charles Dickens and other social reformers started shedding light on some of the living conditions of the poor, and when "The Empire" was really in full swing. This case also took place right after the infamous "Burke and Hare" killings in Scotland ("Do you know the song?") so hysteria over the idea of murderous graverobber's really reached a fever pitch. The author wants to give a full idea of what London was like, so she wanders off topic a bit but I think it adds to the total effect and helps illuminate the story. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was sent this book by a friend in America, hence my copy has American spellings, which threw me slightly. I picked up the book believing it to be a novel, which it isn't, although it's a very good read. The main thrust of the 'story' concerns the murder of a teenage boy in 1831 and the subsequent trial of the three 'resurrection men' who tried to sell his corpse to a medical college.Bodysnatching was illegal, although classed as a misdemeanour rather than a felony. Nevertheless, medical colleges were aware that many of the bodies brought to them had been disinterred. They turned a blind eye because 'The only legal supply of flesh came from the gallows' and the number of executed murderers simply wasn't enough to meet the needs of the medical profession. In London in 1831 there were 'around eight hundred medical students', most of whom required corpses to dissect as part of their anatomical education.In 1828 William Burke was executed (William Hare having been offered immunity for testifying against his former partner in crime) and the practice of murdering people whose corpses were then offered to medical colleges became known as 'burking'. Burke and Hare were not, in fact, grave robbers, but the three men accused of the murder of 'the Italian boy' had been involved in bodysnatching for some time before they turned to murder.As well as piecing together the story of John Bishop, James May, and Thomas Williams, Wise offers a social history of the poor underclass in 1830s London. The poverty, filth, and vulnerability of working-class Londoners is examined in some detail. Occasionally Wise's wide-ranging focus results in over-long and irrelevant chapters (notably the one on Smithfield), but most of her research is put to good use in providing a context for the lurid crime that is the main subject of the book.Bishop and Williams were executed for the murder of 'the Italian boy'. Wise's book is the first to be written about the case, which has been largely forgotten whilst Burke and Hare have become household names. It's an untidy story, set against a backdrop of hopeless poverty, casual violence, alcohol, and desperation. Bishop and Williams (May was not executed) were, perhaps, victims of their own wretched circumstances; but so were their even more unfortunate victims. [February 2007]
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5True story of bodysnatching and murder in and around Spitalfields in the early 19th century. Manages to make the time seem both real and impossobly distant from today. Brings to life a sense of what London's east end was like in those days.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Italian Boy is the story of a little-known 19th century murder. The story begins in 1832 with the delivery of the body of an "Italian boy" to one of London's many private medical schools. In the 19th century, medical schools acquired subjects to practice on from London's many pauper's graves; the body of the body was fresher than one might expect, and lacked burial marks. What followed was an investigation into the murder of an Italian boy, never fully identified by contemporaries. The search for the boy's murderers led to the infamous trial of his suppliers--John Bishop, James May, and Thomas Williams. The murders echoed those of Burke and Hare, two famous resurrectionists after whom the term "burking" was coined. I liked this book, sort of. Although the author goes off on tangents (she talks in general about poverty in the early 19th century, Italian politics, and the Smithfield meat market, which seemed to me to be "filler" for the book, almost like a newspaper article extended to a 300-page book), she presents to her reader a compelling murder story with a bit of a mystery--who was the Italian boy that Bishp, May and Williams supplied to Kings College? On the other hand, I felt as though the author failed to draw any conclusions about the murder, murderers, or to connect various pieces of the puzzle. The book is accompanied by nice engraving reproductions.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Awesome book! Here's my caveat: this is NOT just a true crime story ... the story is centered in the history of early Victorian London, so if you're not a history reader, stay away! However, if you, like myself, are fascinated with all things Victorian, you will absolutely LOVE this book. You get a really good insight into the city of London, the people of London, the socioeconomic side of things, and the system of courts and punishments of the time. The photographs and the drawings are exquisite, and the story of what happened at No. 2 Nova Scotia Gardens will keep you reading. brief peek:It wasn't uncommon for colleges of Anatomy to buy dead bodies; what was uncommon in this case is that when the body of a young boy was delivered, it was still warm even though the body's purveyor swore he got it out of a grave. Set in 1831, The Italian Boy examines the details of this one case from the time the body was delivered through the fate of those who sold it. An amazing history, it not only tells this story, but gives a very keen look into the London of the time. Grave robbing wasn't an abnormal thing in those days; according to law, criminals' bodies could be dug up and used for autopsy purposes. However, the country had just been rocked by the sensational story of Burke & Hare, two criminals who murdered people to sell their bodies for profit (see the story here ), and so the details of the crime involving The Italian Boy were highly sensational at the time. A wonderful history of the time that should not be missed. I recommend this book most definitely!