Lord High Executioner
An Unashamed Look at Hangmen, Headsmen, and Their Kind
Published on 1. March 2016
256 pages
978-1-5040-3149-3 (ISBN)
Description
A grisly tour of hangings, electrocutions, beheadings-and other state-sanctioned deaths that are part of the long history of the death penalty.
In Lord High Executioner, award-winning writer Howard Engel traces the traditions of capital punishment from medieval England and early Canada to the present-day United States. Throughout "civilized" history, executioners employed on behalf of the kingdom, republic, or dictatorship have beheaded, chopped, stabbed, choked, gassed, electrocuted, or beaten criminals to death-and Engel doesn't shy away from the gritty details of the executioner's lifestyle, focusing on the paragons, buffoons, and sadists of the dark profession.
Packed with all-too-true stories, from hapless hangings to butchered beheadings, this historically accurate look at the executioner's gruesome work makes for a thoroughly gripping read.
In Lord High Executioner, award-winning writer Howard Engel traces the traditions of capital punishment from medieval England and early Canada to the present-day United States. Throughout "civilized" history, executioners employed on behalf of the kingdom, republic, or dictatorship have beheaded, chopped, stabbed, choked, gassed, electrocuted, or beaten criminals to death-and Engel doesn't shy away from the gritty details of the executioner's lifestyle, focusing on the paragons, buffoons, and sadists of the dark profession.
Packed with all-too-true stories, from hapless hangings to butchered beheadings, this historically accurate look at the executioner's gruesome work makes for a thoroughly gripping read.
More details
Person
Howard Engel (1931-2019) was born in St. Catharines, Ontario. He was a producer for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation before emerging as a prolific, award-winning, and much-loved mystery writer, best known for the Benny Cooperman detective novels. After suffering a stroke, Engel developed alexia sine agraphia in 2000, a condition that prevented him from reading without great effort. This, however, did not inhibit his ability to write, and he later penned a memoir about the experience and his recovery called
The Man Who Forgot How to Read. Engel was a founder of Crime Writers of Canada, and in 2014, he was the recipient of the organization's first Grand Master Award. He passedaway in 2019 at the age of eighty-eight.
Content
- Contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1 Marking Out the Territory
- Chapter 2 The Road to Tyburn
- Chapter 3 The Ugliest of Trades: The Long-lived Bungler, William Calcraft
- Chapter 4 A Man of Science: William Marwood
- Chapter 5 The Reluctant Hangman: James Berry
- Chapter 6 Last of the Breed: The Billingtons, Ellis, and the Pierrepoints
- Chapter 7 Off with His Head
- Chapter 8 The Guillotine and Its Servants
- Chapter 9 Other Places of Execution
- Chapter 10 Hanging in Canada
- Chapter 11 The American Way of Death
- Chapter 12 The Death House and Its Place in the American Dream
- Chapter 13 Death and the Maiden
- Chapter 14 Hangman's Pay
- Bibliography
- Index
- Acknowledgments
- Acknowledgment of Sources
- About the Author
