The Wicked Boy: An Infamous Murder in Victorian London

by Kate Summerscale

Overview

Winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime Book! 

From the internationally bestselling author, a deeply researched and atmospheric murder mystery of late Victorian-era London

In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age 13) and his brother Nattie (age 12) were seen spending lavishly around the docklands of East London -- for ten days in July, they ate out at coffee houses and took trips to the seaside and the theater. The boys told neighbors they had been left home alone while their mother visited family in Liverpool, but their aunt was suspicious. When she eventually forced the brothers to open the house to her, she found the badly decomposed body of their mother in a bedroom upstairs. Robert and Nattie were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. 

Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. Nattie struck a plea and gave evidence against his brother. The court heard testimony about Robert's severe headaches, his fascination with violent criminals and his passion for 'penny dreadfuls', the pulp fiction of the day. He seemed to feel no remorse for what he had done, and neither the prosecution nor the defense could find a motive for the murder. The judge sentenced the thirteen-year-old to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Yet Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert--one that would have profoundly shocked anyone who thought they understood the Wicked Boy.

At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Kate Summerscale recreates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the past.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780698135000
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/12/2016
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	476,196
File size:	26 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Kate Summerscale, formerly the literary editor of the Daily Telegraph, is the author of The Queen of Whale Cay, which won a Somerset Maugham Award and was short-listed for the Whitbread Biography Prize. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher was a #1 bestseller in the UK, has been translated into more than a dozen languages, was short-listed for the CWA Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction and the Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime, and won the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction and the British Book Awards Book of the Year. Summerscale lives in London.

Table of Contents

Family Tree xiii

Maps xiv

Floor Plan of N°35 Cave Road xvi

A Note on Money xvii

Prologue xix

Part I Ten Days in July

1 The three of us 3

2 All I know is that we are rich 17

3 I will tell you the truth 35

Part II The City of the Damned

4 The machine and the abyss 47

5 A kiss goodbye 63

6 This is the knife 73

7 Chronicles of disorder 95

8 Here goes nothing 115

Part III These Tender Times

9 Cover her face 135

10 The boys springing up amongst us 149

11 It is all over now 161

12 Box him up 181

Part IV The Murderers' Paradise

13 Those that know not what they do 195

14 To have you home again 217

15 In the plastic stage 221

Part V With Trumpets and Sound of Cornet

16 Smooth in the morning light 243

17 Such a hell of a noise 253

Epilogue: Another boy 275

Notes 309

Select Bibliography 353

Acknowledgements 361

Index 363

Editorial Reviews

Ms. Summerscale has found a nifty literary specialty: resurrecting and reanimating, in detail as much forensic as it is novelistic, notorious true-life tales of the Victorian era…Enjoyable as an atmospheric tale of crime and punishment from a distant era written in lucid, limber prose, The Wicked Boy also implicitly raises questions that remain with us today. Are children who kill to be treated as beings fully cognizant of the moral iniquity of their behavior, and held responsible for it? Does an act as heinous as the one Robert committed automatically imply mental illness? Do violent video games have a pernicious influence on contemporary children akin to the suggested impact of the bloody penny dreadfuls on Robert? These and other pertinent issues are not foregrounded. Ms. Summerscale's easy mastery of what turns out to be a complicated, at times surprising narrative drives the book forward.

The New York Times - Charles Isherwood

Over the course of her irresistible book, [Summerscale] takes on popular attitudes toward children and their place in society.

The New York Times Book Review - Marilyn Stasio

★ 05/02/2016
Summerscale (The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher) bolsters her reputation as a superior historical true crime writer with this moving account of Victorian-age murder that is a whydunit rather than a whodunit. In East London during the summer of 1895, 13-year-old Robert Coombes and his younger brother, Nattie, attended a heralded cricket match on their own, telling neighbors that their mother was in Liverpool visiting family. In fact, Emily Coombes was already lying dead in her bed behind a closed door, having been fatally stabbed by Robert. Horrifically, her corpse remained undetected for well over a week while the brothers acted as if nothing were amiss. Upon arrest, Robert claimed he acted after his mother had beaten Nattie, and before she could do the same to him. The resulting trial focused on the question of Robert’s mental state, whether he was really the wicked boy of the book’s title, and how the penny dreadfuls he was so fond of may have warped his mind. Summerscale’s dogged research yields a tragedy that reads like a Dickens novel, including the remarkable payoff at the end. (July)

Publishers Weekly

Kate Summerscale is deft at interweaving weaving her narrative with extensive quotes from court proceedings and press accounts. Don’t look to “The Wicked Boy” for either amped-up emotion or for sanitization of the facts. It reads like the successful and well-balanced offspring of a liaison between a crime novel and a scholarly paper.”— Florida Times Union

“A remarkable job of historical reconstruction…. In the time-honored tradition of Victorian crime stories, The Wicked Boy is a compelling mixture of the gruesome and the perfectly ordinary, a brew uniquely British…. a feat of genuine detective work.” —Dallas Morning News

 “A chilling look at an infamous child murderer, The Wicked Boy will have you losing sleep.”— Bustle

“In The Wicked Boy you’ll think you’re reading Dickens.”— NBC-2

“Summerscale’s command of the detail of Victorian life is impressive; her grasp of the nuances and characters of the individual personalities complete. “The Wicked Boy” is an extraordinary tale of black tragedy and hard-won redemption. Not to be missed by devotees of the Victorian Era.”— Daily Herald

“Ms. Summerscale has found a nifty literary specialty: resurrecting and reanimating, in detail as much forensic as it is novelistic, notorious true-life tales of the Victorian era… Enjoyable as an atmospheric tale of crime and punishment from a distant era written in lucid, limber prose, “The Wicked Boy” also implicitly raises questions that remain with us today… Ms. Summerscale’s easy mastery of what turns out to be a complicated, at times surprising narrative drives the book forward… Ms. Summerscale draws no firm psychological conclusions, but instead leaves the mystery of the boy and the man to our imaginations, where it pricks at us throughout the book.” —Charles Isherwood, New York Times

“Summerscale’s ambitious literary goal… is to position her close study of a specific crime within the broader context of the social and political climate in which it was committed. When the novelist P.D. James turned to true crime… [she] share[d] that expansive vision… Irresistible.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“Summerscale has taken her research to many levels of learning for the reader. It’s more than The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer—it’s a tale about change. It belongs on every reader’s bookshelf.”— New York Journal of Books  

 “Narrative nonfiction that reads like a novel.”— Omnivoracious Best History Books of July

“The Wicked Boy is an absorbing piece of true-crime investigation, and a surprising and satisfying tale of redemption….a treat for true-crime fans.” —Shelf Awareness 

“Summerscale specializes in revisiting scandals that reveal Victorians in the throes of their own morbid spells. She expertly probes the deep anxieties of a modernizing era. Even better, she brings rare biographical tenacity and sympathy to bear.” —The Atlantic

“As engrossing as a novel.” —Entertainment Weekly

“Summerscale bolsters her reputation as a superior historical true crime writer with this moving account of Victorian-age murder that is a whydunit rather than a whodunit….[Her] dogged research yields a tragedy that reads like a Dickens novel, including the remarkable payoff at the end.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)

“This well-written story is not so much a true-crime tale or murder mystery as an excellent sociological study of turn-of-the-20th-century England.” —Kirkus Reviews


Praise for Kate Summerscale’s The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher:
 
"A beautiful piece, written with great lucidity and respect for the reader, and with immaculate restraint. A classic, to my mind, of the finest documentary writing." - John Le Carre
 
"A pacy analysis of a true British murder case from 1860, the unravelling of which involved one of the earliest Scotland Yard detectives and inspired sensation novelists such as Dickens and Wilkie Collins ... Absolutely riveting." - Sarah Waters
 
"[A] fastidious reconstruction and expansive analysis of the Road Hill murder case...Summerscale smartly uses an energetic narrative voice and a suspenseful pace, among other novelistic devices, to make her factual material read with the urgency of a work of fiction." - Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

"Remarkable for the power of the storytelling... [this] is likely to be the last word on this tragic and mysterious crime." - PD James
 
"I can’t think of another book which takes you so fast into the smells, tastes and atmosphere of that time." - Doris Lessing

 
Praise for Kate Summerscale’s Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace:
 
"This is the golden age of narrative nonfiction, and Summerscale does it better than just about anyone." - Laura Miller on NPR's "Weekend Edition Sunday"
 
"Summerscale unspools the Robinsons' tale with flair in Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace, but it's her social history of marriage that's really riveting. Grade: A" - Tina Jordan, Entertainment Weekly
 
"[Kate Summerscale] prods, scrutinizes and examines, employing a real-life historical episode to shed light on Victorian morality and sensibilities." - Andrea Wulf, New York Times Book Review

 

 

From the Publisher

06/01/2016
Summerscale's (The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher) book about Victorian child murderers Robert and Nattie Coombes starts out as a standard true crime read and ends with what was clearly a surprise to the author. That Robert killed his mother at age 13 was never a question—he admitted it freely in a confession—but the subsequent trial of a defendant so young and his sentencing to Broadmoor asylum rather than a prison (or a hanging) was sensational to Victorian newspaper readers. What happened next, however, was shocking. Coombes's incarceration seems to have actually benefitted him, contrary to the common notion of the affects of 19th-century asylum life. His service in World War I at Gallipoli was notable, and most important, his postwar life in Australia was quiet and uneventful, save for his rescue of a neighbor boy from an abusive home, a situation with which Coombes was all too familiar. Summerscale's research reveals that early tragedy for Coombes need not be his end, like it would have been for many, but that it would later provide him with a way to help another young boy in need. VERDICT For true crime readers, history buffs, and fans of the grittier side of Victorian life.—Amelia Osterud, Carroll Univ. Lib., Waukesha, WI

Library Journal

2016-04-19
An investigation of a late-19th-century crime in which a 13-year-old boy murdered his mother.In the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes stabbed his mother, and he and his brother, 12-year-old Nattie, stole her money and took off to watch the local cricket match. Their father was a ship's steward, kind and caring but often absent. Leaving their mother's body upstairs in her bed, the boys enlisted the aid of John Fox, a fellow from the docks who had done odd jobs for their parents. With a look at late-19th-century social mores, the availability and quality of education, and the poor state of psychological help, former Daily Telegraph literary editor Summerscale (Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady, 2012, etc.) exposes how the young killer's mind worked. Robert, an excellent student, was a voracious reader of the penny dreadfuls, adventure books aimed at the young. He was eccentric, morbid, prone to terrible headaches and periods of withdrawal, and obsessed with ghastly murderers. His mother comes off as a harridan: she often beat the boys, including once for stealing food (she often didn't feed them), and she even threw knives at Nattie, who seems to have been oblivious to the direness of the facts but followed Robert without questions. After two weeks, the body was discovered in an advanced state of decay. The trial process was quick and fair, and Robert was remanded to the notorious insane asylum Broadmoor, where he was put in the gentlemen's wing. The author explains the surprisingly kind treatment there, and she follows Robert's transfer to a Salvation Army colony and move to Australia, where he finally found the adventures he had dreamed about. This well-written story is not so much a true-crime tale or murder mystery as an excellent sociological study of turn-of-the-20th-century England.

Kirkus Reviews