Dying speeches & bloody murders

Crime broadsides collected by the Harvard Law School Library

By Harvard Law School Library, Special Collections Department

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Publish Date

2007

Publisher

The President and Fellows of Harvard College

Language

eng

Pages

Description:

Just as programs are sold at sporting events today, broadsides, styled at the time as "Last Dying Speeches" or "Bloody Murders," were sold to the audiences that gathered to witness public executions in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Britain. These ephemeral publications were intended for the middle or lower classes, and most sold for a penny or less. Published in British towns and cities by printers who specialized in this type of street literature, a typical example features an illustration (usually of the criminal, the crime scene, or the execution); an account of the crime and (sometimes) the trial; and the purported confession of the criminal, often cautioning the reader in doggerel verse to avoid the fate awaiting the perpetrator.