A Sentimental Murder Love and Madness in the

So a London paper reported on April 8, 1779, of the moment when James Hackman, a young clergyman, killed Martha Ray and then tried to take his own life. In this fascinating book, John Brewer examines this shocking little scene as it was described and redescribed over the centuries. Fiction and history, it turns out, were intertwined from the beginning in reports of this "sentimental murder." Book jacket.

John Brewer is the author of many books, including The Pleasures of the Imagination (FSG, 1997), which won the Wolfson History Prize. He teaches at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

List of Illustrations

vii

Prologue

ix

Preface

1

(279)

1 Spring 1779

9

(28)

2 The Press: A Case of Sentimental Murder

37

(26)

3 The Killer as Victim: James Hackman

63

(24)

4 Missing Stories: Lord Sandwich and the Making of a Libertine

87

(32)

5 Missing Stories: Martha Ray and the Life of the Mistress

119

(32)

6 Love and Madness, A Story too True

151

(33)

7 Wordsworth and the Doctors

184

(20)

8 The Nineteenth Century

204

(36)

9 The Twentieth Century

240

(40)

10 History and Telling Stories

280

(15)

Notes

295

(37)

Index

332

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A Sentimental Murder Love and Madness in the Eighteenth Century

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials