2009 Billington: Victorian Executioner

Description

Author's Presentation Copy, First Edition, Publishers' Original Binding, Signed, With Dustwrapper

The first edition of this work by Alison Bruce, known for her crime fiction series of 'DC Gary Goodhew' and the trademark setting of Cambridge. This is the author's second non-fictional work, and it tells the stores of macabre murders and crimes that took place in Victorian England, focusing in particular on James Billington, hangman for the British government from 1884 until 1901.

Billington was the executer of some of the most notorious killers in Britain, including the serial killer Dr Cream and Mrs Dyer the baby famer, but many of the little known cases were equally as macabre. He alone was responsible for one hundred and fifty one executions. This books looks at the personalities and people who committed the crimes, as well as the person behind the hangman. 

Three of his sons followed their father's footsteps, and together the family was responsible for two hundred and thirty five deaths in Great Britain between 1884 and 1905. 

Signed by the author to the title page, inscribed 'To Gui.' With the unclipped dust wrapper. Illustrated throughout.

From the library at Julian Park, Hertfordshire, belonging to Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie (1902-1968). Audrey was the youngest daughter of an Anglo-American lumber and steel millionaire, sister to Edward James, a key figure in the Surrealist movement, and the illegitimate granddaughter of King Edward VII. Her passion for literature is displayed by her impressive library. The present volume was added to the library posthumously. 

She was an English socialite known for her beauty and for charming various wealthy men, she was included in The Book of Beauty by Cecil Beaton. A patron of the arts, she assisted Viscount Carlow financially in the publication of limited editions of numerous works by leading literary figures such as T E Lawrence, James Joyce, Wyndham Lewis, and others. A hedonistic pursuer, she was recognised as one of the 'Bright Young Things'.