The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars [Hardcover]

Paul Collins (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 14, 2011

“No writer better articulates ourinterest in the confluence of hope, eccentricity, and the timelessness of the bold and strange than Paul Collins.”—DAVE EGGERS
 
On Long Island, a farmer finds a duck pond turned red with blood. On the Lower East Side, two boys playing at a pier discover a floating human torso wrapped tightly in oilcloth. Blueberry pickers near Harlem stumble upon neatly severed limbs in an overgrown ditch. Clues to a horrifying crime are turning up all over New York, but the police are baffled: There are no witnesses, no motives, no suspects.
 
The grisly finds that began on the afternoon of June 26, 1897, plunged detectives
headlong into the era’s most baffling murder mystery. Seized upon by battling media moguls Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, the case became a publicity circus. Reenactments of the murder were staged in Times Square, armed reporters lurked in the streets of Hell’s Kitchen in pursuit of suspects, and an unlikely trio—a hard-luck cop, a cub reporter, and an eccentric professor—all raced to solve the crime.
 
What emerged was a sensational love triangle and an even more sensational trial: an unprecedented capital case hinging on circumstantial evidence around a victim whom the police couldn’t identify with certainty, and who the defense claimed wasn’t even dead. The Murder of the Century is a rollicking tale—a rich evocation of America during the Gilded Age and a colorful re-creation of the tabloid wars that have dominated media to this day.
 

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[Collins’] exploration of the newspaper world, at the very moment when tabloid values were being born, is revealing but also enormously entertaining….Collins has a clear eye, a good sense of telling detail, and a fine narrative ability.”—Wall Street Journal

“Riveting….Collins has mined enough newspaper clippings and other archives to artfully recreate the era, the crime and the newspaper wars it touched off.”--New York Times

"[A] richly detailed book that reads like a novel and yet maintains a strict fidelity to facts. THE MURDER OF THE CENTURY isn't a case of history with a moral. It's simply a fantastic, factual yarn, and a reminder that abhorrent violence is nothing new under the sun."--Oregonian

“A wonderful reminder that we have often been just as we are: fools for spectacle, short of memory, cheered by the invigorating shock of the immoral.”–Willamette Week

"Paul Collins' account of the headless torso murder that led to an all-out newspaper war and then a dramatic trial has all the timeless elements of a great yarn--a baffling mystery, intriguing suspects, and flawed detectives. It's compelling history that's also great page-turning entertainment."-- Howard Blum, author of The Floor of Heaven and American Lightning

“Wonderfully rich in period detail, salacious facts about the case and infectious wonder at the chutzpah and inventiveness displayed by Pulitzer’s and Hearst’s minions. Both a gripping true-crime narrative and an astonishing portrait of fin de siecle yellow journalism.”--Kirkus Reviews

"A dismembered corpse and rival newspapers squabbling for headlines fuel Collins’s intriguing look at the birth of “yellow journalism” in late–19th-century New York.  an in-depth account of the exponential growth of lurid news and the public’s (continuing) insatiable appetite for it."--Publishers Weekly


 

About the Author

PAUL COLLINS is the author of seven books, which have been translated into ten languages. His work has appeared in Slate, New Scientist, and the New York Times, and he is regularly featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition as their “literary detective.” He lives in Portland, Oregon.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Crown; First Edition edition (June 14, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307592200
• ISBN-13: 978-0307592200
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 0.9 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (82 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #181,045 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Paul Collins is a writer specializing in science history, memoir, and unusual antiquarian literature. His 7 books have been translated into 10 languages, and include Sixpence House: Lost in a Town of Books (2003) and The Murder of the Century: The Gilded Age Crime That Scandalized a City & Sparked the Tabloid Wars (2011). His freelance work includes pieces for the New York Times, Slate, and New Scientist, and he appears on NPR Weekend Edition as its resident "literary detective" on odd old books.

Collins lives in Portland, Oregon, where he teaches in the MFA program at Portland State University.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

120 of 124 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps "The Read of the Summer of 2011--and 2012!" June 16, 2011

By Peter Hillman

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This is a real gem, a fun and delightful good read, of a bygone era with which the author clearly
is in love, an era when reporters collared and interrogated witnesses with or without the police, the police hustled to try to know as much as the journalists, a haircut, shave or massage could be taken way too literally, the streets were dominated by horses, immigrant groups knew their tribal members, and among the chief entertainments were competing, screaming morning and evening newspapers, each pulling out all the stops.

Sitting atop the "yellow journalism" pile were two giants: Hearst, young and up-start, willing to apply any amount of yellow ink to sensationalize his "Journal" and out-do the others; and, Joseph Pulitzer, hardly the epitome of journalistic integrity we think of today when his eponymous awards are given. This Pulitzer, much older and venerated, seems willing to "yellow up" his "World" almost against his better instincts.

To convey a meaty sense of what these end-of-the-Gilded Era times and journalism wars were like, Collins resurrects the Guldensuppe "Scattered Dutchman" murder case--seemingly lost up to now to general readers. In fact, an internet search today of "Guldensuppe murder case" reveals primarily 114 year-old press clippings. Collins, to his immense credit, has done exhaustive primary research to draw us in to the times, the personalities, the case, the papers. What's more, his chapters are supported by substantial end notes that often also delight and inform the reader. Throughout, Collins writes with a sense of immediacy and wonder, a you-are-there style that builds as quickly as one can turn the pages.

I found this a captivating and engrossing read. Even more, permit me to suggest that one read it alongside Pete Hamill's wonderful new "Tabloid City." These two books neatly encapsulate the "birth" of modern print journalism and its seeming demise.

PS One year later--so many readers have delighted in this book, and been unable to match it in so many respects; hence, I've added "2012" to the title. Enjoy!

68 of 73 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Tabloid wars, murder, and some fantastic nonfiction writing June 15, 2011

By Jessica Martinez

Format:Hardcover

I won an ARC of The Murder of the Century from the publisher in a Goodreads giveaway and was so excited to read it because I've really been looking forward to this book. I have a serious love of good narrative nonfiction.

The Murder of the Century is a two-part story. The first aspect of the story is the grisly murder (and subsequent trial) that gripped New York City in 1897 after a man's torso was found floating near a pier by two young boys. At first, the police were baffled and had no clues as to the identity of the dead man, let a long a suspect or a motive. As other body parts and clues turned up across NYC, detectives plunged into investigating the gruesome crime and trying to find leads. The second (and perhaps more central) part of the story is the publicity circus that arose surrounding the murder and trial. Media moguls William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer seized the story and fed the growth of their newspapers (the Journal and the World, respectively) on sensational headlines following every aspect and detail of the case. Hearst even created a Murder Squad at his paper to do their own detective work, and reporters for both papers were often ahead of the real police detectives in chasing leads and finding clues.

Collins's book is a really great history of the beginnings of the tabloid wars and yellow journalism, told through the lens of the Guldenseppe murder -- the crime that really sparked the escalation of the newspaper wars and which found Pulitzer and Hearst dueling fiercely for headlines and readers. The book is extremely readable and in the style of popular history books like those written by Erik Larson and Howard Blum. It's an interesting and entertaining story, and Collins does a fantastic job with it -- the pacing is spot on and kept me engrossed and turning page after page, the writing is excellent, and the book is a perfect balance of informative and educational with lively and absorbing. Definitely recommended, especially for fans of history and/or true crime.

37 of 40 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Exciting Read and Interesting History June 27, 2011

By R. Baum

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

This book is a great rip-roaring summer read. I loved the suspense of the murder mystery along with the carefully researched details that made late-Victorian era New York come to life. The yellow journalism tabloid war was just icing on the cake, as it broadened my understanding of how journalism in that era reported and made the news. When I started this book, I could hardly put it down and devoured it over a three day period. I love history books such as this that also provide the suspense and excitement that I would normally expect from a fictional novel rather than an historical account.