The Murderer of Warren Street: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Revolutionary (Hardback)

Marc Mulholland (author)

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Hardback 384 Pages / Published: 31/05/2018

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Synopsis

'A Victorian whodunit... Swashbuckling adventure and political thriller... A magnificent book.' Francis Wheen, The Oldie In December 1854, Emmanuel Barthelemy visited 73 Warren Street in the heart of radical London for the very last time. Within half an hour, two men were dead... This is the true story of one of nineteenth-century London's most notorious murderers and revolutionaries. The newspapers of Victorian England were soon in a frenzy. Who was this foreigner come to British shores to slay two upstanding subjects? As Oxford historian, Marc Mulholland, has uncovered, Barthelemy was no ordinary criminal. Rather, here was a dedicated activist fighting for the cause of the oppressed worker, a fugitive shaped by the storms of revolution, counterrevolution and a society in the midst of huge transformation. Following in Barthelemy's footsteps, Mulholland leads us from the barricades of the French capital and the icy rooftops of a Parisian jail to the English fireside of Karl Marx, a misty duelling ground and the dangling noose of London's Newgate prison, shining a light into a dark underworld of conspiracy, insurrection and fatal idealism. The Murderer of Warren Street is a thrilling portrait of a troubled man in troubled times - full of resonance for our own terrorised age.

Publisher: Cornerstone
ISBN: 9781786331137
Number of pages: 384
Weight: 526 g
Dimensions: 222 x 144 x 34 mm

MEDIA REVIEWS

"[A] remarkable book. It's an extraordinary story, full of incident, drama and dark comedy" * Daily Mail *
"The Murderer of Warren Street begins as a penny-dreadful and develops into a dual portrait of London and Paris in an age of discontent, conspiracy and revolution. Our hero (or villain) is Barthelemy, a charismatic mix of Spartacus, the Scarlet Pimpernel and Jean Valjean. The Paris chapters have the ring of Victor Hugo, the London chapters are murkily Dickensian. Is Barthelemy an enigmatic outsider like John Harmon, alias Rokesmith, pulled from the Thames in Our Mutual Friend? Or a skulking, ungovernable menace like Rigaud in Little Dorrit? Mulholland tells Barthelemy's story with speed and confidence. As a life, Barthelemy's has it all: double crossings, sabotaged pistols, secret safe houses, disguises, affairs with Italian actresses, brutal guards, prison breaks, rooftop escapes over icy slates and a French femme fatale who may or may not be a spy." -- Laura Freeman * The Times *
"A Victorian whodunit... Swashbuckling adventure and political thriller... Until now Emmanuel Barthelemy has not taken centre stage - which seems astonishing. Marc Mulholland must have hugged himself with glee when he had the idea. He has done it full justice... A magnificent book." -- Francis Wheen * The Oldie *
"A biography that begins with a bang... In dealing with this unsympathetic figure, Mulholland proves to be an excellent guide: knowledgeable, fair-minded, and even handed." -- Robert Douglas-Fairhurst * Spectator *
"The Murderer of Warren Street unravels a real-life Victorian mystery that ended in the last formal duel fought on British soil - but it does much more than that. Mulholland plunges us into the dark world of European socialism, and its cast includes famous figures like Karl Marx and Victor Hugo as well as the sinister yet admirable figure of Barthelemy." -- David Bellos, author of The Novel of the Century: The Extraordinary Adventure of Les Miserables