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Product Identifiers
PublisherOxford University Press, Incorporated
ISBN-100192141953
ISBN-139780192141958
eBay Product ID (ePID)1414100
Product Key Features
Book TitleOxford Book of Villains
Number of Pages444 Pages
LanguageEnglish
Publication Year1992
TopicMystery & Detective, Anthologies (Multiple Authors)
IllustratorYes
GenreLiterary Criticism, Fiction
AuthorJohn Mortimer
FormatHardcover
Dimensions
Item Height1.4 in
Item Weight28.6 Oz
Item Length9.6 in
Item Width6.5 in
Additional Product Features
Intended AudienceTrade
LCCN91-041750
TitleLeadingThe
Dewey Edition20
Reviews'wonderfully entertaining collection ... Mortimer is ideally suited to the task of assembling this rogues' gallery of famous villains, both real and imagined ... this really is a most entertaining book'Reading Chronicle, 'Mortimer's contribution to the booming anthology industry is a stimulating collection of prose and poetry excerpted from the richly diverse literature of villainy, from the Old Testament to Stephen Pyle's Heroic Failures. This delicious compendium, handsomely bound in the Oxford UniversityPress's traditional dark-blue boards with letters of gold, is worth a thousand sermons.'Patrick Skene Catling, The Irish Times, 'John Mortimer has gathered here a horrible host of villains, mainly from literature, but a few, including the two Rippers, from life.'Sandra Barwick, Daily Mail, 'John Mortimer has gathered here a horrible host of villains, mainly fromliterature, but a few, including the two Rippers, from life.'Sandra Barwick, Daily Mail, 'wonderfully entertaining collection ... Mortimer is ideally suited to thetask of assembling this rogues' gallery of famous villains, both real andimagined ... this really is a most entertaining book'Reading Chronicle, 'a skilful mix of horror and humour, fiction and reality taken from some one hundred and seventy-seven widely differing sources dating from earliest time to the present day'Sir David Hopkin, former Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, The Magistrate, November 1992, 'absorbing anthology ... Reading this hugely entertaining anthology, I detect a distinct moral shift down the waveband of iniquity.'J.G. Ballard, Daily Telegraph, 'absorbing anthology ... Reading this hugely entertaining anthology, Idetect a distinct moral shift down the waveband of iniquity.'J.G. Ballard, Daily Telegraph, 'A wealth of villains from John Mortimer ... Mortimer's Book of Villains is admirably arranged.'Moira Shearer, Sunday Telegraph, 'John Mortimer's volume is an enjoyable romp through the stories of bad guys in history, literature and legend ... this continuously entertaining book is full of lollipops, and the juxtaposition of Professor Moriarty, Fu Manchu, Count Fosco and Dr No takes the proceedings delightfully over thetop.'Frank McLynn, Literary Review, 'a skilful mix of horror and humour, fiction and reality taken from someone hundred and seventy-seven widely differing sources dating from earliest timeto the present day'Sir David Hopkin, former Chief Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate, TheMagistrate, November 1992, 'A wealth of villains from John Mortimer ... Mortimer's Book of Villainsis admirably arranged.'Moira Shearer, Sunday Telegraph, 'The object of The Oxford Book of Villains - which is undoubtedly achieved - is amusement. It offers hundreds of amusing and instructive moments.'Roy Hattersley, The Sunday Times, ' Mortimer's copntribution to the booming anthology industry is a stimulating collection of prose and poetry excerpted from the richly diverse literature of villainy, from the Old Testament to Stephen Pyle's Heroic Failures. This delicious compendium, handsomely bound in the Oxford UniversityPress's traditional dark-blue boards with letters of gold, is worth a thousand sermons.'Patrick Skene Catling, The Irish Times
Dewey Decimal808.8/03520692
Synopsis"The world may be short of many things," writes John Mortimer in the introduction to this marvelous volume, "rain forests, great politicians, black rhinos, saints, and caviar, but the supply of villains is endless. They are everywhere, down narrow streets and in brightly lit office buildings and parliaments, dominating family life, crowding prisons and law courts, and providing plots for most of the works of fiction that have been composed since the dawn of history." Now, in the ultimate rogue's gallery, Mortimer (best known as the author of Rumpole of the Bailey) has captured an arresting collection of crooks, murderers, seducers, con men, traitors, and tyrants--the world's greatest villains, both fictional and real. Here readers who love mayhem (at least in print) will find villainy in all its shapes and sizes, from pickpockets and pirates to tyrants and financiers. Billy the Kid rubs shoulders with Mac the Knife, Captain Hook with Casanova, Caligula with Rasputin, Fagin with Dr Fu-Manchu. There are master criminals (such as Dr No, Raffles, or Professor Moriarty), minor miscreants (such as P.G. Wodehouse's Ferdie the Fly, "who, while definitely not of the intelligentsia, had the invaluable gift of being able to climb up the side of any house you placed before him, using only toes, fingers and personal magnetism"), and bumbling incompetents (such as Peter Scott, a Briton who in 1980 made seven attempts to kill his wife, without her once noticing that anything was wrong). We meet the soft-spoken murderer Armstrong, a gentle small-town lawyer, whose manners were so good that when he passed his intended victim a poisoned scone he uttered the immortal words, "Excuse my fingers." And we listen as Marlowe, in Heart of Darkness, remembers Kurtz's report to the Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs--"This was the unbounded power of eloquence--of words--of burning noble words"--and the scrawled postscript, added much later, that hit Marlowe "like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes '" In addition, there is an account of the death of Billy the Kidd, written by Jorge Luis Borges, and another of the tax evasion trial of Al Capone, by Damon Runyon. Mortimer has in fact ranged high and low, taking excerpts from the greats of literature--from the Bible, Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton (where Lucifer has all the best lines, such as "Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n"), Moliere, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, Mark Twain, and many others--and from the leading detective and mystery writers--including Eric Ambler, Dick Francis, Wilkie Collins, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, Ian Fleming, Angela Carter, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Attractive scoundrels and incompetent rogues, calculating murderers and unscrupulous swinders pack these pages with a richness and variety that will by turns delight, surprise and chill., "The world may be short of many things," writes John Mortimer in the introduction to this marvelous volume, "rain forests, great politicians, black rhinos, saints, and caviar, but the supply of villains is endless. They are everywhere, down narrow streets and in brightly lit office buildings and parliaments, dominating family life, crowding prisons and law courts, and providing plots for most of the works of fiction that have been composed since the dawn of history." Now, in the ultimate rogue's gallery, Mortimer (best known as the author of Rumpole of the Bailey) has captured an arresting collection of crooks, murderers, seducers, con men, traitors, and tyrants--the world's greatest villains, both fictional and real. Here readers who love mayhem (at least in print) will find villainy in all its shapes and sizes, from pickpockets and pirates to tyrants and financiers. Billy the Kid rubs shoulders with Mac the Knife, Captain Hook with Casanova, Caligula with Rasputin, Fagin with Dr Fu-Manchu. There are master criminals (such as Dr No, Raffles, or Professor Moriarty), minor miscreants (such as P.G. Wodehouse's Ferdie the Fly, "who, while definitely not of the intelligentsia, had the invaluable gift of being able to climb up the side of any house you placed before him, using only toes, fingers and personal magnetism"), and bumbling incompetents (such as Peter Scott, a Briton who in 1980 made seven attempts to kill his wife, without her once noticing that anything was wrong). We meet the soft-spoken murderer Armstrong, a gentle small-town lawyer, whose manners were so good that when he passed his intended victim a poisoned scone he uttered the immortal words, "Excuse my fingers." In addition, there is an account of the death of Billy the Kid, written by Jorge Luis Borges, and another of the tax evasion trial of Al Capone, by Damon Runyon. Mortimer has in fact ranged high and low, taking excerpts from the greats of literature--from the Bible, Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton (where Lucifer has all the best lines, such as "Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n"), Moliere, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, Mark Twain, and many others--and from the leading detective and mystery writers--including Eric Ambler, Dick Francis, Wilkie Collins, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, Ian Fleming, Angela Carter, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Attractive scoundrels and incompetent rogues, calculating murderers and unscrupulous swindlers pack these pages with a richness and variety that will by turns delight, surprise and chill., "The world may be short of many things," writes John Mortimer in the introduction to this marvelous volume, "rain forests, great politicians, black rhinos, saints, and caviar, but the supply of villains is endless. They are everywhere, down narrow streets and in brightly lit office buildings and parliaments, dominating family life, crowding prisons and law courts, and providing plots for most of the works of fiction that have been composed since the dawn of history." Now, in the ultimate rogue's gallery, Mortimer (best known as the author of Rumpole of the Bailey ) has captured an arresting collection of crooks, murderers, seducers, con men, traitors, and tyrants--the world's greatest villains, both fictional and real. Here readers who love mayhem (at least in print) will find villainy in all its shapes and sizes, from pickpockets and pirates to tyrants and financiers. Billy the Kid rubs shoulders with Mac the Knife, Captain Hook with Casanova, Caligula with Rasputin, Fagin with Dr Fu-Manchu. There are master criminals (such as Dr No, Raffles, or Professor Moriarty), minor miscreants (such as P.G. Wodehouse's Ferdie the Fly, "who, while definitely not of the intelligentsia, had the invaluable gift of being able to climb up the side of any house you placed before him, using only toes, fingers and personal magnetism"), and bumbling incompetents (such as Peter Scott, a Briton who in 1980 made seven attempts to kill his wife, without her once noticing that anything was wrong). We meet the soft-spoken murderer Armstrong, a gentle small-town lawyer, whose manners were so good that when he passed his intended victim a poisoned scone he uttered the immortal words, "Excuse my fingers." And we listen as Marlowe, in Heart of Darkness , remembers Kurtz's report to the Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs--"This was the unbounded power of eloquence--of words--of burning noble words"--and the scrawled postscript, added much later, that hit Marlowe "like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: 'Exterminate all the brutes!'" In addition, there is an account of the death of Billy the Kidd, written by Jorge Luis Borges, and another of the tax evasion trial of Al Capone, by Damon Runyon. Mortimer has in fact ranged high and low, taking excerpts from the greats of literature--from the Bible, Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton (where Lucifer has all the best lines, such as "Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n"), Moliere, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, Mark Twain, and many others--and from the leading detective and mystery writers--including Eric Ambler, Dick Francis, Wilkie Collins, James M. Cain, Patricia Highsmith, Ian Fleming, Angela Carter, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Attractive scoundrels and incompetent rogues, calculating murderers and unscrupulous swinders pack these pages with a richness and variety that will by turns delight, surprise and chill., Villains have been celebrated in song and drama, poem and fiction since the Bible first recorded the exploits of Adam's descendants. John Mortimer is ideally placed, as an author and QC, to compile an anthology of the most infamous representatives, real and imagined, of the criminal world. Whether or not the Devil has all the best tunes, Milton's Satan has some very good lines, good enough, according to Marlowe and Goethe, to persuade a man to sell his soul. Not all villains are as anguished as Faust, however; Sherlock Holmes's arch-enemy Moriarty suffers no qualms of conscience in his determination to destroy the sleuth, and Iago, to name but one of Shakespeare's villains, shows no remorse against Othello. The reputation of some real-life villains is so great that they too have acquired legendary status: Dr Crippen, Lizzie Borden, and Al Capone are among the murderers remembered here. Criminality takes many forms, from pickpocket and highwayman to pirate and con man. Here Jonathan Wild rubs shoulders with Mac the Knife, Captain Kidd with Captain Hook. Casanova, Don Juan, and Richardson's Lovelace have all mastered the pitiless art of seduction, while other villains betray their countries. Tyranny shows itself a brutal regime in the hands of Caligula and Nero, and more subtly oppressive within the family and schoolroom. Attractive scoundrels and incompetent rogues, calculating murderers and unscrupulous swindlers pack these pages with a richness and variety that will by turns delight, surprise, and chill the reader., From pickpockets and pirates to tyrants and financiers, The Oxford Book of Villains brings an arresting collection of crooks, murders, seducers, con men, traitors and tyrants--the world's greatest villains, both fictional and real. Here readers who love mayhem will find villainy in all its shapes and sizes. Billy the Kid rubs shoulders with Mac the Knife, Captain Hook with Casanova, Caligula with Rasputin, Fagin with Dr. Fu-Manchu. There are master criminals (such as Dr. No, Raffles, or Professor Moriarty), minor miscreants (such as P.G. Wodehouse's Ferdie the Fly) and even bumbling incompetents (such as Peter Scott, a Briton who in 1980 made seven attempts to kill his wife, without her once noticing that anything was wrong). John Mortimer (author of Rumpole of the Bailey) has ranged high and low, taking excerpts from the greats of literature--including the Bible, Homer, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton, Moliere, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Trollope, Mark Twain, and many others--and from the leading detective and mystery writers--including Eric Ambler, Dick Francis, Wilkie Collins, Ian Fleming, Patricia Highsmith, James M. Cain, Angela Carter, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Here is a collection packed with scoundrels and rogues, murderers and swindlers, who will by turns delight, surprise, and chill.
LC Classification NumberPN56.5.V5O95 1992
