In 1888 Jack the Ripper made the headlines with a series of horrific murders that remain unsolved to this day. But most killers are not shadowy figures stalking the streets with a lust for blood. Many are ordinary citizens driven to the ultimate crime by circumstance, a fit of anger or a desire for revenge. Their crimes, overshadowed by the few, sensational cases, are ignored, forgotten or written off. This book examines all the known murders in London in 1888 to build a p...

A unique tour through British history—from the perspective of the peasants and the poverty-stricken.The past is traditionally told from the viewpoint of kings and queens, politicians and pioneers. But what about the people struggling to survive at the very lowest levels of society?A Pauper's History of England covers a thousand years of poverty, from Domesday right up to the twentieth century, via the Black Death and the English Civil War. It paint...

*2 February 1101: Ranulf Flambard, the first person to be locked in the Tower of London, chose this day to make his escape. *24 March 1873: Mary Ann Cotton, thought to have poisoned three husbands, a lover, eight children and seven stepchildren, is taken to be hanged. *9 November 1888: The mutilated body of Mary Jane Kelly, thought to be the fifth victim of Jack the Ripper, is found in her room in Whitechapel. This volume contains 365 amazing and incredible true crimes fro...

Discover the darker side of Islington with this remarkable collection of true-life crimes from across the area of London. Combining meticulous research with evocative photography, the author provides a feast of crime to haunt the imagination of any reader interested in criminal and local history.

The historian and expert on Israeli-Palestinian relations offers "a well-written, well-balanced" account of cultural conflicts in the region before WWI (Anita Shapira, author of Israel: A History).When did the Arab-Israeli conflict begin? Some discussions focus on the 1967 war, some go back to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948, and others look to the beginning of the British Mandate in 1922. Alan Dowty, however, traces the earliest roots of the c...

A historian recounts the unlikely rise of a world capital, and how its understanding of Asia played a key role.If one had looked for a potential global city in Europe in the 1540s, the most likely candidate would have been Antwerp, which had emerged as the center of the German and Spanish silver exchange as well as the Portuguese spice and Spanish sugar trades. It almost certainly would not have been London, an unassuming hub of the wool and cloth trade with a popu...

A look at Adolf Hitler's residences and their role in constructing and promoting the dictator's private persona both within Germany and abroad.Adolf Hitler's makeover from rabble-rouser to statesman coincided with a series of dramatic home renovations he undertook during the mid-1930s. This provocative book exposes the dictator's preoccupation with his private persona, which was shaped by the aesthetic and ideological management of his domestic architecture. Hitler'...

Who was Merlin? Is the famous wizard of Arthurian legend based on a real person? In this book, Merlin's origins are traced back to the story of Lailoken, a mysterious 'wild man' who is said to have lived in the Scottish Lowlands in the sixth century AD. The book considers the question of whether Lailoken belongs to myth or reality. It looks at the historical background of his story and discusses key characters such as Saint Kentigern of Glasgow and King Rhydderch of Dumbarton, as well as i...

When discussing unsolved murders of women in late Victorian London, most people think of the depredations of Jack the Ripper, the Whitechapel Murderer. But he was just one of a string of phantom murderers whose unsolved slayings outraged late Victorian Britain.The mysterious Great Coram Street, Burton Crescent and Euston Square murders were talked about with bated breath, and the northern part of Bloomsbury got the unflattering nickname of the 'murder neighbourhood...

This is a new take on the Jack the Ripper story. Focusing on the people who lived through the Ripper's reign of terror, it shows what happened when familiar London streets suddenly became the hunting grounds of a monster.

'EXCELLENT WRITING AND RESEARCH' - RUTH RENDELLThe Crime Museum of New Scotland Yard - invariably known as 'the Black Museum' - houses a remarkable collection of exhibits, photographs and documents connected with some of the most notorious crimes in this country's history. Although the museum is closed to the general public, Gordon Honeycombe was granted privileged access to its classified records, and his book reveals the stories behind 21 murders committed in Britain between 1835 and 198...

Neil R. Storey has drawn on a vast array of original sources - among them witness statements, coroners' reports and court records - to produce a revealing insight into the East End's darkest moments. As well as the murders of Jack the Ripper, perhaps the most infamous in history, he looks at nine other cases in detail: the still mysterious Ratcliffe Highway Murders of 1811; Henry Wainwright, who dismembered his mistress and rolled up her remains in a carpet in 1874; Israel...