Murder in the 19th century was rare. But murder as sensation and entertainment began and became ubiquitous - transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama and opera - even into puppet shows and performing dog-acts.

The book is full of gory details that are hard to forget, has an appropriate sense of overview, and is delivered in a tone that is at once seriously attentive and sympathetically appalled' - Andrew Motion, Guardian