A Very British Murder

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I don’t read a lot of non-fiction but I was attracted to this because it came up as a book club choice just after I had enjoyed several Lucy Worsley documentaries. And there is the fact that the subject matter includes Agatha Christie. MiltonManor–LucyWorsley". LucyWorsley.com. Archived from theoriginal on 14 May 2014 . Retrieved 13 May 2014. Judith Flanders' The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death and Detection and Created Modern Crime (2010); Rosalind Crone's Violent Victorians (2012); Matthew Sweet's Inventing the Victorians(2001) ; P. D. James' Talking about Detective Fiction (2009); and Julian Symons' Bloody Murder: From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel (1972).

A Very British Murder : The Story of a National Obsession

Law, Katie (27 April 2010). "ItistimeforPrincessDianatotakeherplaceinhistory". London Evening Standard . Retrieved 1 April 2013. On 22 June 2023, she presented the The Krypton Factor-style quiz show Puzzling, which made its debut on Channel 5 and there are 13 episodes. Wade, Francesca (26 March 2016). "TalesoflecherousTudors". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 22 October 2016 – via lucyworsley.com. Lucy Worsley looks at murder through the eyes of writers in fiction and fact through the ages, beginning with comments on Thomas de Quincey's essay 'On Murder Considered as one of the Fine Arts' that was inspired by the so-called Ratcliffe Highway Murders of 1811. This multiple murder saw the beginning of the gruesome correlation between lurid reporting of a crime that sparked a massive increase in the sales of newspapers and thus engendered the interest of the public. Spencer, Charles (26 August 2007). "Cavalier:ataleofchivalry,passionandgreathouses,byLucyWorsley". The Independent on Sunday . Retrieved 24 September 2013.Worsley began her career as a historic house curator at MiltonManor, [4] near Abingdon, in the summer of 1995, [5] before working for the SocietyfortheProtectionofAncientBuildings. From 1996 to 2002, she was an inspector of historic buildings for EnglishHeritage in the East Midlands region. During that time, she studied the life of WilliamCavendish,1stDukeofNewcastle and wrote the English Heritage guide to his home, BolsoverCastle. In 2001, she was awarded a DPhil degree from the UniversityofSussex for a thesis on The Architectural Patronage of William Cavendish, first Duke of Newcastle, 1593–1676. [6] The thesis was later developed into Worsley's book Cavalier: A Tale of Chivalry, Passion and Great Houses published in 2007. [7] The same point holds for Patricia Wentworth's Miss Silver, probably the most famous English spinster detective after Miss Marple. Of the 32 Miss Silver mysteries, only three appeared before 1940. 29 of them appeared on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean between 1940 and 1961, that period when, according to Worsley, Graham Greene and James Bond (one an author, one a series character) made " elderly ladies...seem completely old hat." Apparently more than a few people in the forties and fifties liked old hats.

A very British murder : the story of a national obsession A very British murder : the story of a national obsession

In 2016, Worsley presented the three-part documentary Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley in January and Lucy Worsley: Mozart's London Odyssey in June. [17] In September 2016, she was filming an upcoming series A Very British History for BBC Four. [18] In December she presented and appeared in dramatised accounts of the three-part BBC series Six Wives with Lucy Worsley. In 2017, she presented a three-part series entitled British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley, debunking historical views of the WarsoftheRoses, the GloriousRevolution and the BritishoccupationofIndia. [19] Worsley a, Lucy (2001). TheArchitecturalPatronageofWilliamCavendish,firstDukeofNewcastle,1593–1676 (D.Phil. thesis) . Retrieved 1 April 2013. A Very British Murder — история о возникновении полиции и развитии детективного жанра: например, автор подобно рассказывает о прототипах героев Диккенса и преступлениях, которые оказали влияние на творчество Хичкока. This is the second of this author's works I have read. She has an easy to read style with a slight quirkiness, reminiscent of her presentation style on TV. I haven't seen the TV programme/series on which this book was based, but can envisage it from the structure of this book and the general style in which it comes across. I also love my Brit-Box-(Worsely has a television version of this book currently airing on this service) and Acorn TV subscriptions too. Great crime series- from dark and gritty to light and cozy.In the years following the First World War, people wanted leisure reading to numb, not to stimulate, their capacity for experiencing horror. In November 2020, the second series of Royal History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley aired on BBC2, covering the myths behind The FrenchRevolution, GeorgeIV and The RussianRevolution. [21] I especially admired Worsley's elegant use of two essays - Thomas De Quincey's "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts" (1827) and George Orwell's "Decline of the English Murder" (1946) - as the framing works between which her intellectual history unfolds.

A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley - IMDb A Very British Murder with Lucy Worsley - IMDb

Julian Symons' Bloody Murder remains a valuable source on crime fiction, but it is marred, in my view, by the author's determination to drive home his thesis that Golden Age detective fiction was fatally restricted by artificial conventions (the so-called "rules"), making it inevitably inferior to the "crime fiction" of modern times, with its much-heralded psychological and social realism. And P. D. James' Talking about Detective Fiction, a very brief book of about 45,000 words or so, is more problematic than Bloody Murder as a source for a general history, in my opinion. Worsley is Joint Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces but is best known as a presenter of BBC Television series on historical topics, including Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency (2011), Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls (2012), The First Georgians: The German Kings Who Made Britain (2014), A Very British Romance (2015), Lucy Worsley: Mozart’s London Odyssey (2016), and Six Wives with Lucy Worsley (2016). An interesting and enjoyable read, which I would suggest would be an ideal entry-level book for anyone looking to find out more about the history of crime fiction and its links with society.

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Worsley has published a number of books, many guides to houses and the like. Courtiers: The Secret History of the Georgian Court (2011) is her most recent work on history. In 2014, BBCBooks published her book, A Very British Murder, which was based on the series. [23] It turns out that what the lower middle and working classes most wanted to do, in their leisure time, was to come face-to-face with murderers. And if that wasn’t possible, they wanted to read about them.”

A Very British Murder: The Story of a National Obsession

James is always an elegant and enjoyable writer, but in Talking she does not really add to what Symons already did and sometimes gives us much less. James' discussion of American mystery writing, for example, would lead an uninformed reader to believe that virtually all American crime writers wrote hard-boiled mysteries, which is far off the mark indeed. BBCcrewsfilmingnewdocumentarytodayinExeter". Exeter Express and Echo. 14 September 2016. Archived from theoriginal on 6 February 2017 . Retrieved 16 September 2016. This non-fiction book outlines the history of British Crime- both real and fictional and their obsession with crime and murder. It’s not just the British, though. I happen to love, love, love British crime fiction. Two of my all- time favorite book series are British Mysteries- one historical and one set in present day.Four-part series (April 2012). Hosted by GilesCoren, co-presented with JamesWong, AlexLanglands& AlysFowler. [37] Worsley describes the fact that hangings and murders provided entertainment to the public, even so much so that the people bought trinkets as souvenirs. Continuing on with the entertainment theme, Worsley introduces sensational journalism, the theatre, Madame Tussaud’s wax museum, a puppet show, and detective fiction. In addition, she talks about the founding of the organized police force, detective work, ‘Penny Bloods’ (the precursor to crime fiction), poisonings, and forensic science. Owens, Mitchell (1 June 2012). "KensingtonPalace'sNewLook". Architectural Digest . Retrieved 6 September 2020. Owen, Pamela (22 September 2013). "AVeryBritishMurder:Howwebecamehookedonmorbidmysteries". The Mirror . Retrieved 24 September 2013.