A Very British Murder

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In 2011, Worsley presented the four-part television series If Walls Could Talk, exploring the history of British homes, from peasants' cottages to palaces; and the three-part series Elegance and Decadence: The Age of the Regency. In 2012 she co-presented the three-part television series Antiques Uncovered, with antiques and collectibles expert MarkHill, [13] and (broadcast at the same time) Harlots, Housewives and Heroines, a three-part series on the lives of women after the Civil War and the RestorationofCharlesII. [14] Later that year she presented a documentary on DorothyHartley's Food in England as part of the BBC Four "Food and Drink" strand. Owen, Pamela (22 September 2013). "AVeryBritishMurder:Howwebecamehookedonmorbidmysteries". The Mirror . Retrieved 24 September 2013. 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. In 2019, Worsley presented American History's Biggest Fibs, looking at the nation's founding story and American Revolution, the American Civil War, and the Cold War. Relying mostly on James and Symons ( Colin Watson's chestnut Snobbery with Violence, 1971gets tapped too), Worsley has produced an account of the Golden Age that to me is often unsatisfactory.

A Very British Murder: The Story Of A National Obsession A Very British Murder: The Story Of A National Obsession

Part Three, "The Golden Age," was equally well thought out, and Worsley's analysis gave me some welcome new insights about the "dead end" of the interwar detective novel before British genre authors followed their U.S. counterparts into the hard-boiled, noir style of storytelling. On a personal note, Worsley's balanced and insightful analysis helped me finally to articulate why I can read Wilkie Collins or Arthur Conan Doyle all day long, over and over again with relish, while the works of Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers leave me cold. If you are interested in Crime, both as fiction and as reality, especially in how it affects the public psyche, then you will certainly find a lot to appreciate here. 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.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. A very early contribution was 'The Adventures of Susan Hopley, or Circumstantial Evidence' of 1841 in which the heroine solves a murder and then there was 'The Female Detective' and 'Revelations of a Female Detective' by Andrew Forrester and WS Hayward, both books starring a professional heroine who was employed purely to solve crimes. The public interest in murder was at its height and they devoured such offerings. Queen Victoria: Twenty-Four Days That Changed Her Life (U.S. ed.). St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9781250201423.

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

Speaking of James Bond, let me clarify that although Worsley makes it sound as if James Bond came along in 1939, obviously she doesn't mean that because later in the book she refers to his first appearing in 1952 (except wasn't it 1953?). But, in any event, to what extent are Graham Greene and Ian Fleming the prime culprits in the alleged killing off of the classical English detective novel? Souden, David; Dolman, Brett; foreword by HRHThePrinceofWales (2008). The Royal Palaces of London. Merrell Publishers. ISBN 978-1858944234. Some of the history is more interesting than others, but this book was right up my alley. It reminded me of some great mysteries I’ve read over the years and had me thinking of re-reading a few of them, and also reminded me of authors I have yet to try.Carpani, Jessica (25 March 2016). "HistorianLucyWorsley:Mylifeineightobjects". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 22 October 2016. 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. 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.” Would most mystery fans in 1939 even have been able to name Miss Marple (Hercule Poirot, yes)? It's always seemed odd to me that Miss Marple has come to symbolize the alleged coziness of the Golden Age, when in fact almost all her novels were published after the Golden Age ended.

A Very British Murder by Lucy Worsley, review - The Telegraph

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] James shares Symons' view that modern crime fiction is clearly superior to Golden Age detective fiction, though she is more favorable than Symons to the Crime Queens Dorothy L. Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh (on the other hand, Symons is more favorable to Agatha Christie). I've been dipping in and out of this one as I like to do with Non Fiction and as a reader interested in true crime and indeed crime fiction this was a great little read. 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). The Art of the English Murder by Lucy Worsley is written to accompany a BBC television series on which she is a presenter. Her research brought about a written version which provides a plethora of information regarding the British interest in the idea of murder. The fact that the British enjoyed and couldn’t get enough of murder is outlined and discussed by Worsley but not meant to be an encompassing book on crime itself. Several high interest and notorious crimes are highlighted throughout and the murderers lives described. Worsley pinpoints how crime was handled and the limitations of the investigators trying to solve the crimes.In 2005, she was elected a senior research fellow at the InstituteofHistoricalResearch, UniversityofLondon; she was also appointed visiting professor at KingstonUniversity in west London. [12] Television Worsley also wrote the young-adult book Lady Mary, [27] a history-based book that details the life of MaryI, daughter of HenryVIII and CatherineofAragon; it follows her as a young Princess Mary during the time of the divorce of Mary's parents.

A Very British Murder : The Story of a National Obsession A Very British Murder : The Story of a National Obsession

Lucy Worsley, OBE (born 18 December 1973) is an English historian, author, curator, and television presenter. During February and March 2020 the first series of Royal History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley was shown on BBCFour; the three-part series discovers how the history of TheReformation, TheSpanishArmada and QueenAnne and theUnion have been manipulated and mythologised. [20]

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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.