The doctor dissected
Subtitle: a cultural autopsy of the Burke and Hare murders
By: Caroline McCracken-Flesher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2012
Place of publication: Oxford; New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780199766826
Subjects: Scottish authors; Crime in popular culture; English literature; Literature and history; Murder in mass media; National characteristics, Scottish, in literature; History and criticism
Description: A series of bizarre disappearances filled the citizens of early nineteenth-century Scotland with terror. When the perpetrators were finally apprehended in 1828, their motive roiled the nation: William Burke and William Hare had murdered for profit. The cadavers supplied a ready payout, courtesy of Dr. Robert Knox, who was desperate for anatomical subjects. Nearly two hundred years later, these scandalous murders continue to fire imagination in Scotland and beyond.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Medicine, murder, and Scottish story: Doctor Knox and Burke and Hare; title: The story begins: The law versus the press, and the doctor versus Walter Scott; title: Enlightened system versus religious sympathy: The sensational tales of Alexander Leigton and David Pae; title: Dissecting the doctor: Mr. Jekyll, Dr. Hyde, and Robert Knox; title: Anatomizing the audience: James Bridie, melodrama, and the movies; title: Bringing out the dead: Silent victims speak in Alasdair Gray's Poor things; title: Resting in pieces? Present comforts or restless futures in Ian Rankin's Scotland.