Death Drive: PW Talks with Judith Flanders

In The Invention of Murder: How the Victorians Revelled in Death & Detection and Created Modern Crime historian Judith Flanders examines how 19th-century Brits dealt with – and capitalized upon – rising crime levels.

What prompted you to write this book?

I was interested in how the conditions of the 19th century led to the prolifer­ation of interest in murder and how it transformed crimes into entertain­ment. Britain was unique in that it was the first...