The Italian Boy A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London

by Wise, Sarah

• ISBN13: 9780805078497
• ISBN10: 0805078495
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-01
• Publisher: Holt Paperbacks

Summary

"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. Once dead, his value increased: As a highly prized "Fresh Subject" bound for the anatomist's or surgeon's table, he was sold to a medical college by the men who killed him. Their high-profile arrest and trial would unveil London's furtive trade in human corpses, carried out by body-snatchers - or "resurrection men" - who robbed graves and even murdered to supply the lucrative market for cadavers. After all, a well-preserved body could fetch as much as nine guineas, the yearly salary of a working man." "At once a historical thriller and a social history, The Italian Boy meticulously reconstructs the hour-by-hour activities of the body snatchers, investigates the mysterious identity of the anonymous boy, and traces the labyrinthine twists and turns of a case that would engage society from the wealthy to the most hopeless and helpless. In the process, historian Sarah Wise draws a picture of the chaos and squalor of the city that swallowed the fourteen-year-old vagrant: In 1831, London's poor were displaced and desperate; the wealthy were terrified, 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."--BOOK JACKET.

Author Biography

A historian of Victorian England, Sarah Wise has written for The Guardian, The Observer, The Independent on Sunday, and several magazines. The Italian Boy is her first book. She lives in London.

Table of Contents

Preface	xiii
Notes for Non-Londoners	xix
Currency Conversion	xxi
1. Suspiciously Fresh	1	(24)
2. Persons Unknown	25	(24)
3. The Thickest Part	49	(22)
4. Houseless Wretches	71	(22)
5. Systematic Slaughter	93	(12)
6. Houseless Wretches Again	105	(14)
7. Neighbors	119	(12)
8. Meat-An Interlude	131	(18)
9. Whatever Has Happened to Fanny?	149	(16)
10. A Horrid System	165	(28)
11. At the Bailey	193	(32)
12. A Newgate Stink	225	(14)
13. I, John Bishop...	239	(8)
14. Day of Dissolution	247	(8)
15. The Use of the Dead to the Living	255	(16)
16. How Many?	271	(22)
Epilogue	293	(20)
Notes	313	(36)
Bibliography	349	(8)
Illustration Credits	357	(2)
Acknowledgments	359	(2)
Index	361

Excerpts

From The Italian Boy:

Urban poverty, so often a disgusting and harrowing sight to the respectable, could also be a source of wonder and intrigue. A beggar with a certain look, or air, or "act," could feed on city dwellers' craving for novelty and display. To London's grimmest streets, to a population with little access to books or periodicals, and no access to parks, zoos, galleries, or museums—Italian boys brought music, intriguing objects, and strange animals, plus, in many cases, their own beauty. The economies of the Italian states had been devastated by the Napoleonic Wars and throughout the 1820s there was large-scale migration, with many Italian artisans moving to northern European cities to pursue their trades. While later in the century Italian street children would be known for playing musical instruments and dancing, until the mid-1830s their principal source of income was exhibiting small animals as well as wax and plaster figures. The objects and creatures were rented out to the boys each morning by padroni who ran the trade. All in all, Italy was providing London with a better class of vagrant. The pathos an Italian boy evoked could earn his master six or seven shillings a day. Dead—and apparently murdered to supply the surgeons—his appeal only seemed to increase.

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Excerpted from The Italian Boy: A Tale of Murder and Body Snatching in 1830s London by Sarah Wise
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