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Littlehampton in the 1920s was menaced by a bizarre poison-pen case, which required the attention of a leading Metropolitan Police detective, and resulted in four criminal trials before the real culprit was finally punished.
The Littlehampton Libels untangles this mystery story, exploring the inner lives of an English working-class community.
List of contents
- Introduction
- Prologue: Reopening the Case
- 1: Beach Town
- 2: Easter and After
- 3: A Craze for This Sort of Thing
- 4: Will You Let Me Have That Letter
- 5: A Case of Handwriting
- 6: Circumstances Grave and Unusual
- 7: Keeping Observation
- 8: The Perfect Witness
- 9: Bad Language
- 10: It Is Not My Verdict
- Conclusion
About the author
Christopher Hilliard is the Challis Professor of History at the University of Sydney. He is the author of four other books, including
A Matter of Obscenity: The Politics of Censorship in Modern England (2021),
English as a Vocation: The 'Scrutiny' Movement (OUP, 2012), about F. R. Leavis and his followers, and
To Exercise Our Talents: The Democratization of Writing in Britain (2006), which traces a forgotten history of aspiring writers' clubs and how-to-be-an-author magazines.
Summary
Littlehampton in the 1920s was menaced by a bizarre poison-pen case, which required the attention of a leading Metropolitan Police detective, and resulted in four criminal trials before the real culprit was finally punished. The Littlehampton Libels untangles this mystery story, exploring the inner lives of an English working-class community.
Additional text
a portal onto the imaginative structures of working-class life in the 1920s ... Beautifully written and deeply researched, The Littlehampton Libels is an outstanding contribution to our understanding of gender, class, poverty, and literacy in early twentieth-century England and should be required reading for all students of the period ... This riveting microhistory ... tells us much about the imaginative lives of people whose stories are too frequently untold
