Crime At El Escorial: The 1892 Child Murder, the Press, and the Jury

by D.J. Walker

Overview

Crime at El Escorial presents a comparative social and judicial analysis of an 1892 child murder, drawing from newspaper archives among other historical documents. D.J. Walker discusses the role of Spain’s intellectual elite in crystallizing dissatisfaction with the popular jury through its criticism of the “masses” and the impact of journalists’ fictionalized representations of the murder on public opinion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780761863557
Publisher:	University Press of America
Publication date:	08/01/2014
Edition description:	Revised Edition
Pages:	228
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

D.J. Walker is professor emerita at the University of New Orleans. She specializes in the late nineteenth-century social history of Spain and its principal colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. Her books include Representations of the Cuban and Philippine Insurrections on the Spanish Stage: 1887-1898 and Spanish Women and the Colonial Wars of the 1890s, as well as a translation of On Captivity.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Chapter One: Mass Taste and Crime Reporting in the Spanish Press of the 1890s
Chapter Two: Fictionalizing the Escorial Crime
Chapter Three: The Escorial Case as Rural Gothic
Chapter Four: The Case of the “Niño de el Escorial” and the Attack on the Jury
Chapter Five: Missed Opportunities
Epilogue
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

D. J. Walker’s Crime at El Escorial was a path-breaking study of the Spanish press and its influence on the public and jurisprudence. I know of no other historical examination of this subject area that is as richly detailed, comparative and fully researched. Professor Walker was able to coalesce impressive archival and literary sources in this volume. The addition of the epilogue to the revised edition brings the jury question to the forefront of the study. There are many problems with the jury system as currently practised here in the US and elsewhere. Crime at El Escorial brings a powerful, evocative historical element that should be welcome in any meaningful public discussion of the jury system and its equity. I recommend this work to anyone interested in such a discussion in the past or at present.

Bulletin of Spanish Studies

Crime at El Escorial is an illuminating, well-documented study of the rise of a mass readership and the power of the popular press in Spain, as seen through the 1892 murder of a child. In this most welcome revised edition, Walker includes new material on the case, bringing it up to the present with the reinstitution of the jury trial in 1995.

Noël Valis

A compelling account of the coverage of a brutal child murder near Madrid in 1892 and its fallout, D.J. Walker’s book explores the power and the nature of journalism in late nineteenth-century Spain. The unremitting focus on sensationalism and the failure to engage with broader issues raised by the case had serious consequences, including undermining the legitimacy of the new jury system.

Adrian Shubert

Crime at El Escorial is an illuminating, well-documented study of the rise of a mass readership and the power of the popular press in Spain, as seen through the 1892 murder of a child. In this most welcome revised edition, Walker includes new material on the case, bringing it up to the present with the reinstitution of the jury trial in 1995.

Noël Valis