Mysteries of Police and Crime, Vol. 1

Griffiths, Arthur, 1838-1908Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.0
Word count
846K words
Chapters
85

Tags

English Originals Social Sciences Suspense ThrillerSocial ObservationPolice and CrimeHuman NaturePsychological InsightCriminal PsychologyDetective NonfictionAcademic StudyReal CasesVictorian Era

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Mysteries of Police and Crime, Vol. 1 (of 3) by Arthur GriffithsAuthor: Griffiths, Arthur, 1838-1908,Language: English, Class: HV: Social sciences: Social pathology, Social and Public Welfare, Release Date: Sep 12, 2014

Editor's review

This is the first of three volumes of Mysteries of Police and Crime by Arthur Griffiths, released free by Project Gutenberg as an English-language eBook and classified under social pathology and social welfare in the social sciences. Griffiths had a professional background in policing and prison administration, which gives his account the perspective of a practitioner rather than mere sensation-seeking. The book centres on police investigations and criminal cases, drawing largely on real cases and social records of the time, and can serve as a popular reader for understanding British policing, attitudes to crime and investigative methods from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. As a public-domain eBook, it has no modern scholarly notes or contextual introduction, and some of its language bears clear marks of its era, which readers must judge for themselves. It suits readers interested in the history of crime and policing as further reading, and also works as English-language reading material.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Start with the table of contents and select chapters by type of case or stage of policing; reading straight through is not necessary.
  2. Note the author's period standpoint as you read and weigh it against modern criminological views.
  3. Read alongside sources on the history of the British police system to fill in background.
  4. In the English original, proceed chapter by chapter and briefly summarise the key points of each case after reading.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85

FAQ

Is this book a fictional crime story? No, it is not fiction. It is a nonfiction work on police and crime, narrated from real cases and social records and classified under the social sciences. Readers expecting suspense fiction should adjust their expectations.
Do the three volumes need to be read in order? This is the first of three volumes, and its chapters mostly centre on specific cases or policing topics with considerable independence, so you can start with chapters that interest you. To grasp the overall structure, however, it is still best to skim the table of contents before deciding on an order.
Can the views in the book be taken directly as historical fact? The narrative carries the ideas and habits of expression of the author's era, and some judgments may not match modern understanding. When reading it as a historical source, compare it with modern research and do not quote it uncritically.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Griffiths, Arthur, 1838-1908 Author

Arthur Griffiths (1838–1908) was a British author with twenty works held in this collection. Public information about his life is limited, and biographical details are difficult to verify, but his subjects show a lasting interest in prisons and criminal history. His best-known work, Chronicles of Newgate, traces the history of that famous prison and its inmates in successive volumes, while Prisons Over Seas and Russian Prisons turn to penal conditions in other countries, reflecting a sustained concern with justice and punishment. He also wrote fiction, including The Rome Express and A Son of Mars, the former unfolding its plot aboard a train and the latter, published in volumes, coloured by adventure and soldierly life. His writing stands between historical reporting and popular narrative, well grounded and fluently told, and remains useful for the study of modern prison history and crime literature.