The first book-length work of true murder stories was published in English in 1621! I had to use an exclamation point because it took me decades to find enough clews to answer the question.
I spent part of the Covid lockdown doing obscure genre research on sites like Google Books and HathiTrust and WorldCat and Early English Books Online and Public Domain Review. I lost track of the hours I spent in this delightful task but it was enough for me to say with confidence that --
The first true crime book published in English was written by John Reynolds, a native of Exeter, England, published in 1621 - The Triumph of God’s Revenge Against the Crying and Execrable Sinne of Murder. Execrable is an old word that is hard to say. Which might explain why it’s dead. It means extremely unpleasant.
Let’s call his book the Triumph. It was an immediate triumph. It is impossible to overstate how immensely popular this book was. King James loved it. Everyone did, from the kitchen to the front parlor.
There was a second edition. Sixth edition. Eleventh edition. Everyone in England read this book. Folio edition. Special edition. Limited edition. Pocket size edition. Abridged edition. The abridged edition went into five editions. The last edition was printed in Belfast in 1842. Meaning this book actually stayed in print for two hundred twenty-one years. Now that's a hell of a press run.
My favorite edition of this book is the 1635 deluxe edition fit for royal reading, It has woodcuts of scaffold scenes and cover art that shows justice, unmoveable, limbs firm, legs of stone and arms of steel, sword in one hand, scales in the other. Smaller woodcuts around the margins show hangings and duels. These were done by a famous engraver, John Payne, one of the earliest line engravers in England, and this attests to how important and popular the Triumph was.
One little caveat. The author was challenged on the truth of the stories. He adamantly insisted they were true, but he did not vouchsafe his documentary evidence. That said, the public believed they were true murder stories and it was labeled and sold and read as a true crime book. Does this make them true crime stories? If a million readers believe it to be true, but one person, alright the author secretly knows he invented them, are they true? In the popular mind, the first true crime book was God’s Revenge. Thus I think it fair and appropriate the declare that true crime was born in 1621* and never mind the asterisk.
We have a lot of reading to catch up on. A lot can happen in four hundred years.
Art via Public Domain Review
Add'l sources: Joan Walmsley, John Reynolds, merchant of Exeter. 1991. Albert Borowitz, Blood and ink. 2002. Kathy Roberts Forde, Literary journalism on trial. 2008. Louis B. Wright, Middle class culture in Elizabethan England, 1935. #clews #truecrime
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