Classic Crimes

I find many of the reviews "right on". However, many comments are off-base, and as His Cousin, I find inappropriate. Ask, and you may find Truth! "No disrespect..." ..."but"... there is that word again... don't listen to what I just said, just what I am about to say... Amazing how the critics, nearly a Century later, have criticisms that sting, but couldn't find the gumption to face Him... or me! Let's get it on!

This is a truly enjoyable read of murders and a recounting of the trials associated with them.-Roughead is an inimitable Scottish stylist and, as Luc Sante points out in the introduction, his "musical" use of abstruse Scottishisms is a joy in and of itself to read. The only thing in literature to which one can really compare it is Sherlock Holmes-Sir Arthur Conan Doyle makes an appearance in one of these cases, btw.-I don't mean to do Roughead a disservice in this comparison-Certainly, these are as true to the actual facts as Roughead could make them (and he goes to great lengths to do so), and several of the cases remain unsolved or "Not Proven"-a verdict in Scots law with which you shall become all too familiar if you read this book. - But, the same Victorian atmospherics are present as in Doyle, the Victorian moralisms, the eerie descriptions, the bumbling Dogberries of police constables. It's actually refreshing to know that these things existed just as Doyle wrote of them....except these cases are REAL! Of course, there's the question the contemplative reader asks himself from time to time as to why he is interested in the macabre and the details thereof.-An interesting question.-I know not the answer.-But we all are, it would seem, to one ghoulish extent or the other. 5 Macabre, Scottish Stars!

William Roughead's accounts of great crimes from eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Scotland and England are about the most delicious mind candy I can think of; I opened this new edition from NYRB and almost couldn't put it down. While his vocabulary and style at times go a bit overboard in terms of their purpleness, he still presents very readable and exciting accounts of some incredible crimes which still haunt the popular imagination today (such as his account of the West Port murders of Burke and Hare, the body snatchers).Re-issuing Roughead's work is really a feather in NYRB's cap, and yet I can't help wishing they had taken more pains with this edition. (Because of this, I felt I could not really offer it the five stars it otherwise would've deserved.) The introduction by Luc Sante is interesting, but not without errors: he notes that all of the crimes excepting those of Burke and Hare "are discoveries [on the part of Roughead]"; yet Roughead himself admits that Deacon Brodie's case has been dramatized many times, and inspired Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Madeleine Smith's trial inspired a film, "Madeleine," directed by David Lean in the 1950s. Similarly, no editor seems to have taken the time to annotate some of Roughead's more bizarre (or anachronistic, or peculiarly Scottish) terms: "douce" is used repeatedly for "sweet", and "lands" (apparently a term for the highrise towers in Edinburgh) recurs often too, yet there's nary a word of explanation. This lack of editorial interference is not welcome, especially since Roughead often refers repeatedly to other writings of his which his original audience would have recognized but which remain obscure to a contemporary reader.Still, this book is a real treasure--and, as with all NYRB books, it comes on beautiful paper and with a gorgeous cover.

Simply put, William Roughead was and is the greatest true crime writer of them all. Combining a supple prose style with an inimitable, pawky sense of humor, he remains the best prose stylist chronicling human depravity since, well, the authors of the King James Bible. A Scot by birth, Roughead became a Writer to the Signet, a privileged position which allowed him to attend and write up the great murder trials of his era (1870-1952). His works are shamefully out of print and are well worth searching out in used book stores: both his commercial collections and his contributions to the "Notable British Trials" series. Henry James was one of his many devoted fans and even the briefest sample of his prose makes it obvious why true-crime buffs consider him the master. "Classic Crimes"(which includes chapters on Deacon Brodie, Burke and Hare, Madeleine Smith, Dr. Pritchard, William Palmer, etc.) is the best collection of his work in print and I would be remiss if I did not mention that I owe my introduction to this peerless writer to Toni Morrison, who confessed her own idolatrous admiration in a New York Times Book Review piece more than 20 years ago. If you like his stuff you'll never be able to get enough of it. (Also worth securing are the works of Roughead's friend, the American Edmund Pearson, whose "Studies in Murder" was reprinted last last by the Ohio State University Press.) As Roughead so eloquently put it: "Murder has a magic of its own, its peculiar alchemy. Touched by that crimson wand, things base and sordid, things ugly and of ill report, are transformed into matters wondrous, weird and tragical. Dull streets become fraught with mystery, commonplace dwellings assume sinister aspects, everyone concerned, howsoever plain and ordinary, is invested with a new value and importance as the red light falls upon each."