"Most Horrible & Shocking Murders: Murder Pamphlets in the Collection of the National Library of Medicine" Website Launch

Michael Sappol--friend of Morbid Anatomy and historian in the History of Medicine Division of the National Library of Medicine--has just alerted me to the launching of a new website based on his recent exhibition documenting the rich and quirky collection of murder pamphlets in the collection of the National Library of Medicine.

From the press release:

A new website, "Most Horrible & Shocking Murders: Murder pamphlets in the collection of the National Library of Medicine," has been launched by the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the world's largest medical library. The site features a selection of murder pamphlets from the late 1600s to the late 1800s-from a treasure trove of several hundred owned by the Library.

Ever since the invention of movable type in the mid-1400s, public appetite for tales of shocking murders-"true crime"-has been one of the most durable facts of the market for printed material. For more than five centuries, murder pamphlets have been hawked on street corners, town squares, taverns, coffeehouses, news stands, and bookshops.

These pamphlets have been a rich source for historians of medicine, crime novelists, and cultural historians, who mine them for evidence to illuminate the history of class, gender, race, the law, the city, crime, religion and other topics. The murder pamphlets in the NLM's collection address cases connected to forensic medicine, especially cases in which doctors were accused of committing-or were the victims of-murder.

You can visit the website--which I designed, in fact!--by clicking here. All of the above images are drawn from the "pamphlets" section of the website, which contains these images along with a wealth of others; click here to peruse that section. Mr. Sappol is also the author of perhaps my favorite book about anatomical illustration, the incomparable "Dream Anatomy," which you can find out more about--and order!--by clicking here.

Thanks, Mike, for doing such wonderful work, and for alerting me to its launch!

"Of Dolls and Murder," A Documentary about the “Nutshell Studies” Dollhouse Crime-Scene Dioramas

"Convict the guilty, clear the innocent, and find the truth in a nutshell." --Police Mantra in Of Dolls and Murder

Wow. Looks like there is a new documentary film--narrated by none other than John Waters and featuring a cameo by our good friend John Troyer--about the fantastic and exquisite “Nutshell Studies” Dollhouse crime-scene dioramas created by Frances Glessner Lee to serve as student aids in the 1930s and 40s.

Here is an excerpted description from the film's website:

The new documentary film, Of Dolls and Murder, explores our collective fascination with forensics while unearthing the criminal element that lurks in one particularly gruesome collection of dollhouses. Rather than reflecting an idealized version of reality, these surreal dollhouses reveal the darker, disturbing side of domestic life.

Created strictly for adults, these dollhouse dioramas are home to violent murder, prostitution, mental illness, adultery and alcohol abuse. Each dollhouse has tiny corpse dolls, representing an actual murder victim. In one bizarre case, a beautiful woman lays shot to death in her bed, her clean-cut, pajama-clad husband lies next to the bed, also fatally shot. Their sweet little baby was shot as she slept in her crib. Blood is spattered everywhere. And all the doors were locked from the inside, meaning the case is likely a double homicide/suicide. But something isn’t right. The murder weapon is nowhere near the doll corpses – instead the gun was found in another room.

Why would anyone create such macabre dollhouses? And why would anyone re-create crime scenes with such exquisite craftsmanship that artists and miniaturists from around the globe clamor (unsuccessfully) to experience this dollhouse collection in person?

Of Dolls and Murder investigates these haunting “Nutshell Studies” dollhouses and the unlikely grandmother who painstakingly created them – Frances Glessner Lee. Known as the Patron Saint of Forensics, Lee didn’t let gender biases and prescribed social behavior of a wealthy heiress keep her from pioneering the new arena of “legal medicine” in the late 1930s and 1940s.

To train investigators, Lee created 18 dioramas (20 actually, but two are missing) for detectives to study crime scenes from every angle, including the medical angle. She used only the most mysterious cases (cases that could have easily been misruled as accidents, murders, or suicides) to challenge students’ ability to interpret evidence. Almost 70 years later, Lee’s dollhouses are still relevant training tools because all the latest technological advances in forensics do not change the fact that crime scenes can be misread, and then someone will literally get away with murder. But the story does not end with Lee and her dollhouses of death.

The nation is obsessed with forensic justice television, and why? Why do we love to watch a skewed reality of crime-fighting forensics? The answer lies somewhere with the need we have to entertain ourselves with stories about our fear of untimely, brutal death. The societal truths about how loved ones often murder one another is far too wicked to face, let alone change. Instead, we prefer to escape into a safe haven where solving murders easily wraps up in under one hour.

For more about this production, visit the film's website by clicking here. You can read a post on the film by participant John Troyer--who just informed me that not only has the film been released (despite the website saying it is "still in production) but has already won Best Documentary at the Thrill Spy Film Festival in Washington, D.C.--by clicking here. For more on these amazing dioramas, check out Corinne May Botz's lush photo book The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death by clicking here.

Story via Laughing Squid.

Images from the NY Times slide show "Visible Proofs: Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death;" you can see the full show by clicking here.

"The True and Horrid Story of Burke and Hare," Illustrated Lecture by Lisa Rosner, Observatory, Thursday March 18th

This Thursday we have a really exciting lecture at Observatory: Professor and scholar Lisa Rosner will be on hand to tell us the "true and spectacular history" of Williams Burke and Hare, perpetrators, in the name of medicine, of "the most atrocious murder spree of the century, outflanking even Jack the Ripper's," as detailed in her book The Anatomy Murders.

As she explains in an interview on the Dead Guys in Suits blog:

Between November 1827 and November 1828, in Edinburgh, Scotland, William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people – 3 men, 12 women, and 1 child – in order to sell their cadavers to an anatomy lecturer, Dr. Robert Knox. These were the first serial killings to gain media attention, 60 years before Jack the Ripper. The link between murder-for-profit and medical progress has fascinated people ever since. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote a short story based on it, called The Body Snatcher, which was turned into a terrific horror flick in 1945, starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi..

Hear the entire story, get a tutorial on the eponymous practice of "burking," and purchase signed copies of her book the day after tomorrow at Observatory! Full details follow; very much hope to see you there!

The True and Horrid Story of Burke and Hare
An illustrated lecture and book signing by Lisa Rosner,
Professor of History at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Date: Thursday, March 18th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

Up the close and down the stair,
But and Ben with Burke and Hare.
Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief,
Knox the man who buys the beef.
—anonymous street song

On March 18, 2010, Lisa Rosner will be discussing the myths and realities of the Burke and Hare case, resurrected in her recent book The Anatomy Murders: Being the True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh's Notorious Burke and Hare and of the Man of Science Who Abetted Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes.

On Halloween night 1828, in the West Port district, a woman sometimes known as Madgy Docherty was last seen in the company of William Burke and William Hare. Days later, police discovered her remains in the surgery of the prominent anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Docherty was the final victim of the most atrocious murder spree of the century, outflanking even Jack the Ripper's. Together with their accomplices, Burke and Hare were accused of killing sixteen people over the course of twelve months in order to sell their corpses as "subjects" for dissection. The ensuing criminal investigation raised troubling questions about the common practices by which medical men obtained cadavers, the lives of the poor in Edinburgh's back alleys, and the ability of the police to protect the public from cold-blooded murder.

Lisa Rosner is Professor of History at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. She received her AB from Princeton University and her PhD from Johns Hopkins University. She has been awarded fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the New Jersey Historical Commission. The Anatomy Murders is the third book in her historical trilogy on Edinburgh medicine. "The Worlds of Burke and Hare," the companion website to The Anatomy Murders, is available at Burke and Hare. You can find out more about her book by clicking here. You can find out more about her work by clicking here.

You can get directions to Observatory--which is next door to the Morbid Anatomy Library--by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here. You can read Lisa Rosner's entire interview on the Dead Guys in Suits blog by clicking here. To find out more about her book The Anatomy Murders, click here.

Image used by permission of the Library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

Morbid Anatomy Presents at Observatory: 3 March Events

We at Morbid Anatomy are pleased to present three great upcoming lectures at Observatory this month--one to take place tonight! One more event--a panel discussion on Modern Ruins and the Post-Industrial Sublime, to take place on March 25th--will be announced very soon. Hope to see you at one or all of these great presentations!

"Death Becomes Them" Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious; a reading and lecture
Tonight! Thursday, March 4
Time: 8:00
Admission: $5.00

In Death Become Them, Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious, journalist/author Alix Strauss will discuss in an illustrated lecture based on her research for her book "Death Becomes Them," the phenomenon and history of suicide and the seductive appeal of celebrity suicide in Western culture. Over the course of her lecture, she will present fascinating details leading up to the last days of icons of celebrity suicide such as Virginia Woolf, Sigmund Freud, Spalding Gray, Kurt Cobain, Diane Arbus, and Vincent van Gogh. After reading from selected passages, she will discuss the methodology, pathology, and psychology of these luminaries, with an eye towards understanding why such brilliant people all chose this particular end. She will also touch on society's needs to “mass mourn,” the cultural phenomenon of funerals, and the role that mental illness and addiction play in suicide.

Along with the reading and lecture, Alix will also do a quiz, complete with prizes. Specially packaged copies of "Death Become Them," which come with a Quija Board Key chain or a Happy Childhood Memories Spay, will be available for purchasing and signing. Those who buy copies will also get a special gift -- a small bottle of Funeral Home perfume, a coffin filled with skeleton mints or a waterproof mascara.

Alix Strauss is author of Death Become Them: Unearthing the Suicides of the Brilliant, the Famous, and the Notorious. She also a media savvy social satirist, and featured lifestyle and trend writer. She is the author of the award winning short story collection, The Joy of Funerals (St. Martin's Press), and the forthcoming novel, Based Upon Availability, June of 2010 (Harper Collins). You can find out more about her book by clicking here. You can find out more at alixstrauss.com.

“Imaging the Diorama:” An Illustrated Lecture with Diane Fox
Date: Thursday, March 11
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5.00

In 1889 Carl Akeley, working for the Milwaukee Public Museum, created the first total habitat diorama by arranging stuffed muskrats into a facsimile of their natural environment. While the originators of the diorama strove to heighten its sense of reality, many contemporary artists have used the medium’s format to comment on its artificiality or hyper reality.

This lecture will examine the work of several photographers who use the form of the natural history museum diorama to comment on the connection (or lack of connection) between the human and natural world.

Diane Fox is a Lecturer in the College of Architecture and Design at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville where she teaches graphic design and photography. Fox received her MFA from The University of Tennessee and her BFA from Middle Tennessee State University. Her current body of photographic work, "UnNatural History," is composed of images shot in various natural history museums in the US and Europe. Her solo exhibits have been exhibited in the Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA; Tower Fine Arts Gallery, SUNY Brockport, Brockport, NY; Gallery Stokes in Atlanta, GA; Santa Reparata Gallery, Florence Italy; Apex Gallery, South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, Rapid City, SD; Sarratt Gallery, Vanderbilt University Nashville, TN; and Dom Muz Gallery, Torun, Poland among others. You can see some of her work at dianefoxphotography.com.

The True and Horrid Story of Burke and Hare
An illustrated lecture and book signing by Lisa Rosner,
Professor of History at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey.
Date: Thursday, March 18th
Time: 8:00 PM
Admission: $5

Up the close and down the stair,
But and Ben with Burke and Hare.
Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief,
Knox the man who buys the beef.
—anonymous street song

On March 18, 2010, Lisa Rosner will be discussing the myths and realities of the Burke and Hare case, resurrected in her recent book The Anatomy Murders: Being the True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh's Notorious Burke and Hare and of the Man of Science Who Abetted Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes.

On Halloween night 1828, in the West Port district, a woman sometimes known as Madgy Docherty was last seen in the company of William Burke and William Hare. Days later, police discovered her remains in the surgery of the prominent anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Docherty was the final victim of the most atrocious murder spree of the century, outflanking even Jack the Ripper's. Together with their accomplices, Burke and Hare were accused of killing sixteen people over the course of twelve months in order to sell their corpses as "subjects" for dissection. The ensuing criminal investigation raised troubling questions about the common practices by which medical men obtained cadavers, the lives of the poor in Edinburgh's back alleys, and the ability of the police to protect the public from cold-blooded murder.

Lisa Rosner is Professor of History at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey. She received her AB from Princeton University and her PhD from Johns Hopkins University. She has been awarded fellowships from the American Philosophical Society, the National Endowment of the Humanities, the Chemical Heritage Foundation, and the New Jersey Historical Commission. The Anatomy Murders is the third book in her historical trilogy on Edinburgh medicine. "The Worlds of Burke and Hare," the companion website to The Anatomy Murders, is available at Burke and Hare. You can find out more about her book by clicking here. You can find out more about her work by clicking here.

You can get directions to Observatory by clicking here. You can find out more about Observatory here, join our mailing list by clicking here, and join us on Facebook by clicking here.

Image: "Tiger and Crows, Natural History Museum, London, England.” Diane Fox

Upcoming Observatory Presentation: "Constance Kent and the Great Crime of 1860," Lecture and Book Signing, Wendy Walker

This Monday, December 14th, Observatory, in conjunction with Proteotypes and Proteus Gowanus Interdisciplinary Gallery and Reading Room, will be presenting a very exciting lecture by author Wendy Walker about the infamous Road Hill House Murder of 1860, in which 15 year old Constance Kent of Somerset was accused of killing her three-year-old half-brother and stuffing his body down the privy.

The story of the Road Hill Murder has many--as you will read in the description below--bizarre and enigmatic elements. It was an important and influential case that captivated the imagination of the times, inspiring the first true-crime novel (The Great Crime of 1860 by Joseph Stapleton), providing the source material for a number of literary works (Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone and Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood), causing riots in the streets, and marking itself as "a watershed in the history of police investigation, forensic medicine, journalistic practice and and British criminal law."

Author Wendy Walker--who's new book on the life and enigma of Constance Kent, Blue Fire, has just been published--will tell the whole fascinating and bizarre story--with pictures!--on Monday night. Copies of Blue Fire be available for purchase and signing. Hope to see you there!

Full details below:

Constance Kent and the “Great Crime of 1860,” Lecture and Book Signing
Wendy Walker, author of Blue Fire
Date: Monday, December 14
Time: 8:00 pm (Doors at 7)
Admission: $5
Lecture and book-signing of her book Blue Fire; a Morbid Anatomy event presented in conjunction with Proteotypes and Proteus Gowanus

A talking tour by Wendy Walker, author of Blue Fire, a new work that reexamines the unsolved case of Constance Kent, protagonist at 15 of the Road Hill House Murder. Accused of killing her three-year-old half-brother and stuffing his body down the privy at the family estate in Wiltshire, Constance was cleared at the coroner’s inquest. In the view of many at the time, the boy had been killed by his father and his nurse, surprised in bed. Yet five years later, under the influence of a priest, Constance confessed to the crime. The “Great Crime of 1860” and the trial of Constance Kent constituted a watershed in the history of police investigation, forensic medicine, journalistic practice and and British criminal law. It caused riots in the streets and rocked the Anglican Church. It was the ancestor of the country house murder mystery and directly inspired both Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone and Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood, as well as the first true-crime book, The Great Crime of 1860 by Joseph Stapleton. It has been novelized, dramatized, televised and filmed, and recounted from various angles, most recently by Kate Summerscale in The Suspicions of Mr Whicher (2008).

The enigmatic figure at the center of this story confessed to a crime she did not commit, was condemned to death, spent twenty years in prison, and went on to a career of almost sixty years as a nurse and social activist. This talk with images will trace the three stages of her long life.

Wendy Walker is a core collaborator at Proteus Gowanus and the editor of Proteotypes. Besides Blue Fire, she is the author of The Secret Service, The Sea- Rabbit, or, The Artist of Life, Stories Out of Omarie (all from Sun and Moon Press) and Knots (Aqueduct Press). Her critical fictions have appeared in Conjunctions, Parnassus, 3rd Bed, Fantastic Metropolis, the Green Integer Review and The Gertrude Stein Awards for Innovative American Poetry.

To see the entire upcoming schedule, click here. To get on the mailing list, click here. For directions to Observatory, click here. Join Observatory on Facebook by clicking here. You can find out more about Wendy Walker by clicking here.

Image: "Constance Kent, the murderess."Mark Joseph Allan; Albumen silver carte-de-visite [ca. 1866]; Reproduction rights owned by the State Library of Victoria; Found on the State Library of Victoria Website. Click here to find out more about Wendy Walker's book Blue Fire.

People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938

As I type this entry, I am enjoying the wonderful CD set People Take Warning! Murder Ballads & Disaster Songs 1913-1938.

It is a 3 CD set, packed into an illustrated book full of historical information about each song. There are three themed CDs--"Man versus Machine," "Man versus Nature," and "Man versus Man (and Woman too.)" Here is a sample of some of the songs you'll find here: "Titanic Blues (1932)" (one of about 5 other songs on this theme), "Memphis Flu (1930)," "Burning of the Cleveland School (1933), "Fatal Wreck of the Bus (1936)," "The Santa Barbara Earthquake (1928) , and "Murder of the Lawson Family" (1930).

Thanks, Herbert, for alerting me to this collection. And special thanks to Gerry Newland for buying it for me. You can download an MP3 from the collection and find out more here.