Kate Summerscale

"Una notte d'estate del 1860. In un'elegante casa georgiana del Wiltshire tutti dormono. All'una il cane abbaia. Il mattino l'orribile scoperta, la culla del piu piccolo dei sette figli, Saville Kent, e vuota. Un brivido percorre tutta la casa e inizia una disperata ricerca, si valuta la possibilita di un sequestro, si interrogano i domestici. Nel salone una finestra e aperta: e l'unica pista. Poche ore dopo, il cadavere del bambino viene trovato sgozzato in giardino. Tutti i membri della famiglia Kent sono sospettati e l'assassino e certamente fra loro. L'ispettore di Scotland Yard Jack Whicher viene mandato sul posto a indagare. È il primo a usare metodi di indagine che poi diventeranno famosi, anche grazie a scrittori come Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, o Arthur Conan Doyle che si ispireranno alla sua figura reale per i loro personaggi immaginari. Il caso occupa per anni le prime pagine dei quotidiani, tutta l'Inghilterra segue il delitto, ne e affascinata e terrorizzata. Nessuno accettera le conclusioni di Mr. Whicher, che solo in un secondo tempo si riveleranno esatte. Kate Summerscale ricostruisce l'intera vicenda servendosi di documenti e fonti giornalistiche dell'epoca, con una forte capacita di padroneggiare le tecniche del racconto giallo. "

Early in the morning of Monday 8 July 1895, thirteen-year-old Robert Coombes and his twelve-year-old brother Nattie set out from their small, yellow-brick terraced house in East London to watch a cricket match at Lord's. Their father had gone to sea the previous Friday, the boys told their neighbours, and their mother was visiting her family in Liverpool. Over the next ten days Robert and Nattie spent extravagantly, pawning their parents' valuables to fund trips to the theatre and the seaside. But as the sun beat down on the Coombes house, a strange smell began to emanate from the building. When the police were finally called to investigate, the discovery they made sent the press into a frenzy of horror and alarm, and Robert and Nattie were swept up in a criminal trial that echoed the outrageous plots of the 'penny dreadful' novels that Robert loved to read. In The Wicked Boy, Kate Summerscale has uncovered a fascinating true story of murder and morality - it is not just a meticulous examination of a shocking Victorian case, but also a compelling account of its aftermath, and of man's capacity to overcome the past.

El estremecedor relato del crimen que conmocionó a la recatada sociedad victoriana.Este libro constituye el relato verídico de un escalofriante asesinato acaecido en un pueblo de Inglaterra en 1860. Ocurrió en el seno de la familia Kent: el hijo más joven fue secuestrado y después degollado. El brutal asesinato ocupó las primeras páginas de los periódicos durante varios años y llamó la atención de escritores como Charles Dickens y Wilkie Collins. Su resolución dejó al descubierto las turbias aguas que se escondían tras la formalidad decimonónica de la familia inglesa

THE PERFECT GIFT FOR ALL BIBLIOMANES A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE TIMES, FINANCIAL TIMES, SPECTATOR AND DAILY MAILAS HEARD ON BBC RADIO 4 WOMAN'S HOUR AND START THE WEEKPlunge into this rich, surprising and stunningly designed A-Z compendium to discover how our fixations have taken shape, from the Middle Ages to the present day, as bestselling author Kate Summerscale deftly traces the threads between the past and present, the psychological and social, the personal and the political. 'Fascinating ... Phobias and manias create a magical space between us and the world' Malcolm Gaskill, author of the No.1 bestseller The Ruin of All Witches'Fascinating' Observer'An endlessly intriguing book ... All the bibliomanes (book nutters) I know will love it' Daily Mail

It is a summer's night in 1860. In an elegant detached Georgian house in the village of Road, Wiltshire, all is quiet. Behind shuttered windows the Kent family lies sound asleep. At some point after midnight a dog barks. The family wakes the next morning to a horrific discovery: an unimaginably gruesome murder has taken place in their home. The household reverberates with shock, not least because the guilty party is surely still among them. Jack Whicher of Scotland Yard, the most celebrated detective of his day, reaches Road Hill House a fortnight later. He faces an unenviable task: to solve a case in which the grieving family are the suspects. The murder provokes national hysteria. The thought of what might be festering behind the closed doors of respectable middle-class homes - scheming servants, rebellious children, insanity, jealousy, loneliness and loathing - arouses fear and a kind of excitement. But when Whicher reaches his shocking conclusion there is uproar and bewilderment.A true story that inspired a generation of writers such as Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, this has all the hallmarks of the classic murder mystery - a body; a detective; a country house steeped in secrets. In The Suspicions of Mr Whicher Kate Summerscale untangles the facts behind this notorious case, bringing it back to vivid, extraordinary life.

El estremecedor relato del crimen que conmocionó a la recatada sociedad victoriana.Este libro constituye el relato verídico de un escalofriante asesinato acaecido en un pueblo de Inglaterra en 1860. Ocurrió en el seno de la familia Kent: el hijo más joven fue secuestrado y después degollado. El brutal asesinato ocupó las primeras páginas de los periódicos durante varios años y llamó la atención de escritores como Charles Dickens y Wilkie Collins. Su resolución dejó al descubierto las turbias aguas que se escondían tras la formalidad decimonónica de la familia inglesa convencional.  

La brontofobia, o el miedo patológico a las tormentas, se considera un terror infantil, pero son muchos más los adultos afectados. La erotomanía, u obsesión amorosa es tanto la angustia incontrolable por el amor no correspondido como el autoengaño de sentirnos deseados por alguien. La gerascofobia, emparentada con el conocido como síndrome de Peter Pan, describe la aversión ante la vejez o el envejecimiento de los que amamos. La coreomanía es la necesidad imperante de bailar sin tregua hasta caer rendido.Más de la mitad de la población mundial padece nomofobia, el pánico desmedido a no tener el teléfono móvil a mano. A todos, sin excepción, nos obsesiona algo. Mientras la sociedad considera defectos imperdonables las fobias y manías de sus individuos, tan solo entenderlas puede ayudarnos a comprendernos y comprender a quienes nos rodean. Para reconciliarnos con nosotros mismos. Para sentirnos un poco menos solos.