By drawing attention to the wide range of gruesome, bloody and confronting amusements patronised by ordinary Londoners this book challenges our understanding of Victorian society and culture. From the turn of the nineteenth century, graphic, yet orderly, ‘re-enactments’ of high level violence flourished in travelling entertainments, penny broadsides, popular theatres, cheap instalment fiction and Sunday newspapers. This book explores the ways in which these entertainments siphoned off much of the actual violence that had hitherto been expressed in all manner of social and political dealings, thus providing a crucial accompaniment to schemes for the reformation of manners and the taming of the streets, while also serving as a social safety valve and a check on the growing cultural hegemony of the middle class.
Table of Content
List of figures, tables and diagrams
Acknowledgements
Prologue
1. London 1800–50: Coping with change, expressing resistance
2. About town with Mr Punch
3. From scaffold culture to the cult of the murderer
4. The ‘Blood-Stained Stage’ revisited
5. Selling Sweeney Todd to the masses
6. The rise of modern crime reporting
Epilogue: 1870 – The Civilising Moment?
Bibliography
Index
About the author
Rosalind Crone is Lecturer in History at the Open University
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