The Anatomy Murders in the News

• Atlantic City Press: Stockton College history professor writes book about early serial killers. By Steven V. Cronin
• One of the benefits of writing about serial killers is you meet some really nice people.
• That, at least, is how Lisa Rosner sees things.
• Rosner, a history professor at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey in Galloway Township, is author of "The Anatomy Murders: A History of the Notorious Burke and Hare Murder Case." The book details the story of a pair of 19th-century criminals who turned to slaughter to make a killing in the emerging - and lucrative - market for medical school cadavers... Read more
• The Scotsman: Book reviews: The Anatomy Murders:
• EDINBURGH'S status as City of Literature was well merited; more specifically, though, Scotland's capital has been the city of a certain sort of literary sensibility: civilised yet irredeemably gothic; austerely extravagant and deeply dualistic. If Deacon Brodie was born there, it was the spiritual birthplace to Doctor Jekyll and to Mr Hyde: fact and fiction alike have helped shape an insistently modern yet unsettlingly atavistic urban vision. No episode has contributed more than the murder campaign of Burke and Hare. Just as the sleek elegance of the New Town was shown up by the dark and crime-ridden slums of the Old, so Edinburgh's Enlightenment was ironically counterpointed by the brutal cynicism of these killings. Cutting-edge medical science was already cutting up the bodies of the poor: Burke, Hare and Knox just cut out the wait for death. In this exciting, thought-provoking study, Rosner rescues their story from the chamber of horrors and replaces it at the very heart of Edinburgh's intellectual and imaginative history.
• BBC History Magazine: Clive Emsley enjoys a vivid but serious study of notorious murderers Burke and Hare
• The media and the public relish a good murder. They – we – are particularly fascinated by multiple murder. It was ever thus. Sixty years before London, and the rest of Britain, was shocked by the atrocities of Jack the Ripper, Edinburgh was shaken by the deeds of Burke and Hare. Contemporary newspapers were full of the events; early ‘true crime’ books covered them; there were plays and, in the 20th century, movies.
• As befits the murders, Lisa Rosner’s vivid new book – subtitled Being the True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh’s Notorious Burke and Hare, and of the Man of Science Who Abetted Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes – never lets the action slacken. However, this is not pulp non-fiction but a serious analysis based on a wide and impressive range of primary sources.... Read more
• Penn Press Log, Bloody Valentines: Two UK reviews of The Anatomy Murders: This past weekend, both the Scotsman and BBC History Magazine showed some love for Lisa Rosner's The Anatomy Murders... Read more
• The Washington Times: Author Lisa Rosner...has done a fine job of taking an already oft-told tale and injecting new information and a broader context that elevates these two grotesque villains from being seen as cartoon monsters and puts them in their proper - albeit awful - place in the customs of the time... Read more
• Politics and Prose, Washington DC: Jack the Ripper was—if you’ll excuse me—a distant second to William Burke and William Hare of 19th century Edinburgh. Lisa Rosner, a professor of history, has brought them and their world to life in THE ANATOMY MURDERS. (University of Pennsylavania Press, $29.95) It was a widespread practice of the time to dig up corpses in order to sell them to medical men for dissection. Burke and Hare, with coldblooded ingenuity, realized they could simply skip the grave-digging, and in an atrocious spree murdered 16 people and delivered them to the anatomists—all in one year. Another crime novel? Not at all. This is a remarkably researched and riveting story of the Irish migration to Scotland, of the lives of Edinburgh’s ‘dangerous classes,’ of the medical practices of the day, of the legal system and of Burke and Hare and their very real victims. I am full of admiration for Professor Rosner. This is a perfect book for a history buff with a slightly murderous heart. Reviewed by Jeanie Teare
• ForeWord Magazine: In the year following November 1827, the Irish knockabouts William Burke and William Hare, who lived in Edinburgh and worked as laborers, became entrepreneurs, founding a home-operated business with low overhead, a high-demand market, and payment on delivery. But in procurement, operations, and deliveries they remained amateurs. The duo’s program of bodysnatching, involving “burking” (suffocating) the victim and delivering the corpse to Dr. Robert Knox, an ambitious anatomist, crashed after the seventeenth murder. A suspicious resident in Burke’s lodging house called the police…
• Lisa Rosner, professor of history at Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, has dissected a vast overburden of material to deliver a fully fleshed account that goes far beyond murder. She explores a fascinating network of factors—Edinburgh’s socioeconomic strata, the demands of scientific medicine, the lack of bodies for dissection, and contemporary legal philosophy and criminal justice among them. Much of the book’s gripping interest lies in Rosner’s skilled analysis of the widespread furor and media frenzy that the murders provoked. The public became concerned over investigative and court procedures and a prosecution deal through which Hare was able to shop Burke, who was hanged, while he was spared execution.
• The Burke–Hare crimes became a minor investigative industry and have given rise to numerous films, but Rosner has delivered the definitive account in both detail and interest. Reviewed by Peter Skinner.
• Library Journal: From 1827 to 1828, William Burke and William Hare murdered 16 people in order to meet demands for corpses to be used in medical research, and Dr. Robert Knox paid them for the delivery of fresh cadavers. The term burking was coined for their manner of killing by chest compression and smothering, which left little or no evidence... Engaging, atmospheric, and tantalizing... Read more
• Penn Press Log, Corpse of the Day: With Halloween approaching, and historian Lisa Rosner on the road discussing her latest book, The Anatomy Murders: Being the True and Spectacular History of Edinburgh's Notorious Burke and Hare and of the Man of Science Who Abetted Them in the Commission of Their Most Heinous Crimes, we are giving readers a glimpse into the lives and deaths of some of the more curious corpses connected to the case. ... Read more
• Edinburgh Evening News, A Forensic Study of Burke and Hare's Crimes: THE story of Burke and Hare's notorious Edinburgh crimes has survived for nearly 200 years. In that time it has spawned books, films and a string of city tours, and next year their chilling tale will get another re-telling, when David Tennent is due to begin filming yet another movie based on their exploits. Everyone knows the story. The problem, argues the historical detective behind a new book examining their deeds, is how much of what they know is actually true?... Read more
• By the Book @ Rogers Memorial Library, Crimes of the Past: For those readers who enjoy historical fiction, true crime, or nonfiction that reads like fiction, historical true crime is another genre to consider. These books are generally recent publications that either try to solve an old crime using modern research and forensics (Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper, Case Closed or The Anatomy Murders)... Read more
• Wonders and Marvels, Burke and Hare Anatomy Murders: On Halloween, 1828, sometime before 11 pm, Hugh Alston, a grocer in the West Port district of Edinburgh, heard two men quarrelling from the floor below, and a woman’s strong voice calling “Murder”... Read more
• Wonders and Marvels, Blaming the Burke and Hare Victim: Why, when a beautiful girl is murdered, are people so quick to assume that it must somehow have been her own fault? That has been the unfortunate fate of Mary Paterson, killed by Burke and Hare in April 1828, her body sold to anatomy lecturer Dr. Robert Knox. As if it were not bad enough to be burked at the age of 18, preserved in alcohol for three months and then dissected, she has also been saddled with a reputation as a notorious prostitute... Read more