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Overview
A wry, compelling look at the mania surrounding the sensational case of the "Monster" who terrorized eighteenth-century London. "Entirely fascinating"—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post"The facts in this case are so bizarre that no novelist would have dared to invent them," said the Philadelphia Inquirer. Indeed. A century before Jack the Ripper haunted the streets of London, another predator held sway: a "vulgar-looking man" who slashed at female pedestrians with a knife while uttering profanities with a "tremulous eagerness"—over fifty victims during a two-year crime spree. The city was gripped with fear, outrage, and "Monster mania." The latter was abetted by a £100 reward and by the circulation of bawdy prints that capitalized on the Monster's tendency to slash his victims' buttocks. Armed vigilantes roamed the streets, and fashionable ladies dared not walk outdoors without strategically placed cooking pots under their dresses. Finally, in June 1790, one Rhynwick Williams was arrested. After two long and ludicrous trials, at one of which he was defended energetically by the eccentric Irish poet Theophilus Swift, Williams was convicted. Was he guilty? Or just unlucky enough to fall into the hands of authorities when they needed someone to pay? Drawing on contemporary evidence and reinterpreting Monster mania in the light of historical and modern instances of mass hysteria, Jan Bondeson recounts with dry wit a tale that occupies a unique place in criminal history and imagination—"a strange historical episode, alternatively disturbing and absurd" (Kirkus, starred review).
Author Biography: Jan Bondeson lives and works in London.
Synopsis
A wry, compelling look at the mania surrounding the sensational case of the "Monster" who terrorized eighteenth-century London. "Entirely fascinating"—Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
Publishers Weekly
Was pitiful pauper Rhynwick Williams the Monster who inflamed London circa 1790 with a series of slashing attacks on women? Bondeson, a British medical doctor who explores unusual corners of history (A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, etc.), ably resurrects this "popular mania" in a work well attuned to its large cast and social subtleties. He portrays in tart specifics a city plagued by class stratification, street crime and vice, and that was served by barely rudimentary policing. Yet the social imagination was seized by a series of mysterious attacks on women (accompanied by the perpetrator's vulgar exclamations) and the resulting flood of public accusations, rumor-mongering and bawdy prints. After various falsely accused individuals were nearly lynched, the beau of a more socially prominent victim apprehended Williams, an artificial flower maker with uncouth habits with regard to women, who nonetheless had a strong alibi. Still, Williams was convicted after two raucous and ineptly managed trials and served several years. Bondeson's colorful principals are soundly portrayed, as is the resonant backdrop of a chaotic, misogynist and barbarous metropolis. Although his 18th-century London seems far removed and faintly absurd, Bondeson's examination of the Monster mania and similar 19th-century incidents throughout Europe as examples of "moral panic"--wherein isolated incidents convince the populace that moral order is being eroded--is illuminating. The theme will undoubtedly resonate with readers today, and Bondeson's fascinating account will appeal not only to true-crime buffs but to readers interested in an unusual slice of history. 34 b & w illustrations. (Dec.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Editorials
Publishers Weekly -
Was pitiful pauper Rhynwick Williams the Monster who inflamed London circa 1790 with a series of slashing attacks on women? Bondeson, a British medical doctor who explores unusual corners of history (A Cabinet of Medical Curiosities, etc.), ably resurrects this "popular mania" in a work well attuned to its large cast and social subtleties. He portrays in tart specifics a city plagued by class stratification, street crime and vice, and that was served by barely rudimentary policing. Yet the social imagination was seized by a series of mysterious attacks on women (accompanied by the perpetrator's vulgar exclamations) and the resulting flood of public accusations, rumor-mongering and bawdy prints. After various falsely accused individuals were nearly lynched, the beau of a more socially prominent victim apprehended Williams, an artificial flower maker with uncouth habits with regard to women, who nonetheless had a strong alibi. Still, Williams was convicted after two raucous and ineptly managed trials and served several years. Bondeson's colorful principals are soundly portrayed, as is the resonant backdrop of a chaotic, misogynist and barbarous metropolis. Although his 18th-century London seems far removed and faintly absurd, Bondeson's examination of the Monster mania and similar 19th-century incidents throughout Europe as examples of "moral panic"--wherein isolated incidents convince the populace that moral order is being eroded--is illuminating. The theme will undoubtedly resonate with readers today, and Bondeson's fascinating account will appeal not only to true-crime buffs but to readers interested in an unusual slice of history. 34 b & w illustrations. (Dec.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.Booknews
A century before Jack the Ripper there was the London Monster, whose knife attacks on women caused unprecedented alarm, terror, and uproar. Through chance combined with vigilante effort, a young Welshman, Rhynwick Williams, was arrested as the Monster and committed to prison after a sensational trial at the Old Bailey. However, doubts about Williams' guilt persisted, and some writers asserted that there never was a Monster at all. Over 200 years later, Bondeson (author of and ) unearthed new clues to this fascinating case, which lies somewhere between fact and urban legend. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)From The Critics
"The Monster has struck again" became an expected headline in London's racy newspapers during 1788-90, appearing over fifty times and filling the minds of respectable women with fear, expectation, or hope. Though the Monster was not a precursor of the murdering Jack-the-Ripper, his habit of thrusting a stiletto into the buttocks of unsuspecting women led to near hysteria among the helpless Bow Street magistrates, charged with policing the city. "Policing the city" was something of forlorn hope. London had a population of well over a million, a total that included every sort of penniless discharged soldier and seaman, con-men and vagrants of every type, and a roistering low-life rife with alcoholism and prostitution. Crime and its reporting came perilously close to being accepted public entertainment.Bondeson, a physician, has written previously on individuals with physical abnormalities, describing their troubled interactions with the normal world. In The London Monster, focusing on the hunt for and the capture and trials of the Monster, he has made a major foray into serial crime and its psychological climate. In addition to being a compelling crime story, the book is rewarding history. Bondeson provides an excellent survey of London's social and sexual life, the interactions within and between classes, and the acute limitations of strictly amateur criminal investigations and police work.
As the author demonstrates, many things don't change in city life. The pressure for an arrest-any arrest-becomes an obsession whenever crimes against the person take on a serial form. Dubious identifications of possible perpetrators are egregiously buttressed; the authorities endlessly prevaricate and ever more clumsily attempt to cover their tracks when their flawed procedures are denounced.
What gives Bondeson's book additional interest is his analysis of the roles played by socially prominent individuals, including, in this case, the wealthy banker-collector John Julius Angerstein. As in today's political campaign contributors, the price for financial help is access to the inner circle, to the key players. Angerstein was not alone in expressing keen interest in the exact positioning and nature of the stab wounds suffered by the Monster's victims; the press eagerly joined him. The belated apprehension of the mild Rhynick Williams, a seemingly cultured artificial flower maker, as the suspect has all the elements of a farce. Frugality led him to share single beds with other men in lodging houses, which gave rise to "the apprehension of horrid propensities." These received a field day in the press.
Bondeson's accounts of Williams' two trials offer significant insights into late-eighteenth century England's legal and judicial systems and the social forces that all too often distorted them. These included stretching the facts, the testimony, and the law. The public, as always, had to be served. While the crowd cried for blood, Williams (if convicted), was likely to be guilty only of misdemeanors, not of felonies, which would significantly limit the severity of the sentence but not the anger of the public. Obscure criminal law statues were imaginatively examined in the hope that Williams' actions could be prosecuted as felonies.
The jury found Williams guilty, a decision that propelled the matter toward judicial review and renewed public interest. An influential pamphlet by the ever-interested Angerstein questioned the verdict and suggested that not one but a number of "monsters" had been stalking women through London's streets. Bondeson is at his best in detailing how a Papierkrieg by the intelligent but not entirely reputable lawyer Theophilus Swift (a collateral descendant of the famous Jonathan Swift) influenced public opinion in favor of Williams.
Sober judicial review found the statute-stretching first indictment invalid and a second trial ensued, in which Swift vigorously defended Williams. In bringing out the dynamic interplay of examination and cross-examination, Bondeson demonstrates that the courtroom-as-theater has a respectable history; it is clearly not a modern American invention. Despite Swift's efforts, Rhynwick Williams received a six-year jail term-and had the unlikely mid-term pleasure of being joined in jail by his lawyer. Once released, Williams began his own pamphlet war, but soon dropped from sight leaving but faint trace in the public record.
In his final three analytical chapters, Bondeson examines the phenomena of the imagined-attack syndrome, panic and hysteria, and, in the alleged Monster's case, factors promoting improper police work. Well-reproduced contemporary illustrations and notes that include bibliographical references add to this engaging book. (December)
From the Publisher
"Impeccable. . . . [Bondeson] is to be commended on the level of research that has obviously been undertaken to produce this fascinating boo. Highly recommended for crime historians."—Ripperologist