The nail in the skull and other Victorian urban legends / Simon Young.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Young, Simon (Historian), author.

Contributor:

Rosengarten Family Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Urban folklore--Great Britain.

Urban folklore.

Legends--Great Britain.

Legends.

Tales--Great Britain.

Tales.

Popular culture--Great Britain--History--19th century.

Popular culture.

Great Britain.

Genre:

History.

Physical Description:

xi, 227 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, [2022]

Summary:

"In the last fifty years, folklorists have amassed an extraordinary corpus of contemporary legends including "the Choking Doberman," "the Eaten Ticket," and "the Vanishing Hitchhiker." But what about the urban legends of the past? These legends and tales have rarely been collected, and when they occasionally appear, they do so as ancestors or precursors of the urban legends of today, rather than as stories in their own right. In The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends, Simon Young fills this gap for British folklore (and for the wider English-speaking world) of the 1800s. Young introduces seventy Victorian urban legends ranging from "Beetle Eyes" to the "Shoplifter's Dilemma" and from "Hands in the Muff" to "the Suicide Club." While a handful of these stories are already known, the vast majority have never been identified, and they have certainly never received scholarly treatment. Young begins the volume with a lengthy introduction assessing nineteenth-century media, emphasizing the importance of the written word to the perpetuation and preservation of these myths. He draws on numerous nineteenth-century books, periodicals, and ephemera, including digitized newspaper archives-particularly the British Newspaper Archive, an exciting new hunting ground for folklorists. The Nail in the Skull and Other Victorian Urban Legends will appeal to an academic audience as well as to anyone who is interested in urban legends"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. The Baby Picnic

2. Beetle Eyes

3. The Bosom Serpent

4. Buried Alive

5. The Cautious Druggist

6. Child Pie

7. The Chimney Boy

8. Chloroformed!

9. Covert Catholics

10. Cycling Afflictions

11. Death Dice

12. Devil Take Me!

13. Do You Know Her?

14. Downie's Slaughter

15. Dressing the Workhouse Corpse

16. Drugged on a Train

17. The Eagle and the Baby

18. Egg Ring

19. Familiar Enemies

20. Fish Ring

21. The Galvanic Convict

22. The Ghost in Search of Help

23. Ghost Wager

24. Ghosdy Donation

25. Hands in the Muff

26. Harem Prisoner

27. Hero Survives

28. Hollow Tree Death

29. Human Sausages

30. I Lost the Ring Here

31. I'm Jack the Ripper!

32. Immured Lovers

33. The Injured Garotter

34. Jolting the Coffin

35. The Judge and the Foreman

36. The Lady and the Ring

37. The Lawyer and the Poisoned Cakes

38. The Long Pack

39. Message in a Hat

40. A Million Postage Stamps

41. The Misdetoe Bride

42. A Modern Jonah!

43. Nail in the Coffin

44. The Nail in the Skull

45. The Omnibus Driver's Holiday

46. One Litde Piggy

47. Paying for His Burial

48. The Pickpocket's Ring

49. Poison Duel

50. Prayers and the Thief

51. The Red Hand!

52. The Returned Watch

53. Selling Sovereigns

54. Sewer Monsters

55. She's My Daughter?

56. Shooting at a Ghost

57. The Shoplifters Dilemma

58. The Skeletons That Eloped

59. The Spanish Prisoner

60. The Suicide Club

61. Swallowed Up

62. The Tell-Tale Eye

63. Tick Tock

64. There's Gold in Those Sewers

65. Tunnel Kissing

66. The Vanishing Lady

67. Watch the Clock

68. Wild Thing

69. The Wrong Bed

70. The Wrong Trousers.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Rosengarten Family Fund.

Other Format:

Online version: Young, Simon. Nail in the skull and other victorian urban legends

ISBN:

9781496839473

1496839471

9781496839466

1496839463

OCLC:

1282000911

Publisher Number:

99991068054