大象传媒

Despite rising crime figures - and increasingly crowded cities - the public were reluctant to accept the establishment of an organised police force.

This episode examines the reasons for that unwillingness and offers a fascinating insight into the origins of modern policing.

Over the course of the 19th century, murder - in reality a rarity - became ubiquitous: transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama.

Seeing therein the foundation of modern notions of crime, Judith Flanders explores this fascination with deadly violence by relating some of the century's most gripping and gruesome cases and the ways in which they were commercially exploited.

Read by Robert Glenister.

Abridged by David Jackson Young.

Producer: Kirsteen Cameron

First broadcast on 大象传媒 Radio 4 in January 2011.