Executions and the British Experience from the 17th to the 20th Century

From the trial and execution of King Charles I of England in 1649 to the reading of A.E. Houseman's poems by Clarence Darrow in a Chicago murder trial in 1924, writers have registered their opinions and impressions of both public and private forms of execution. This collection of ten essays examines in detail the literary responses of various writers to the social issue of capital punishment during this four-century span.