Burke and Hare (Crime Archive)

112 pp. Burke and Hare were infamous suppliers of corpses to the Edinburgh medical establishment in a reign of terror from 1828-9. History remembers them as body snatchers, but there is no proof that the pair ever robbed a grave; instead they created fresh corpses by suffocating hand-picked victims. This is just one of the myths exploded by this ‘bloody history’, which features trial reports, confessions, prison records and contemporaries’ accounts. A rich cast of characters includes the pairs’ implicated lovers, Helen and Margaret; Professor Knox who received the bodies; and local victims from ‘Daft Jamie’ to ageing prostitute Mary Haldane. New light is thrown on the bodies trade through a recent find at the National Archives: a confession from John Bishop – perhaps a copycat ‘burker’ – who with Thomas Williams was executed for the murder of the ‘Italian boy’ in 1831.