"The essays in this book set out to explore the ways in which Victorians used newspapers to identify the causes of bad behavior and its impacts, and the ways in which they tried to "distance" criminals and those guilty of "bad" behavior from the ordinary members of society, including identification of them as different according to race of sexual orientation. It also explores how threats from within "normal" society were depicted and the panic that issues like "baby-farming" caused." "Victorian alarm was about crimes and bad behavior which they saw as new or unique to their period - but which were not new then and which, in slightly different dress, are still causing panic today. What is striking about the essays in this collection are the ways in which they echo contemporary concerns about crime and bad behavior, including panics about "new" types of crime. This has implications for modern understandings of how society needs to understand crime, demonstrating that while there are changes over time, there are also important continuities."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Illustrated Police News is often dismissed as a crude publication which aimed to thrill the undiscerning reader with gruesome pictures. Cruel Deeds and Calamities sets out to correct that belief by demonstrating the diversity of its subject matter, examining its social and political agenda and revealing the power and compassion in its images. The Illustrated Police News was a promoter of social change and a campaigner against the evils of cruelty, poverty, drink and crime. It anticipated by many years the features of today's journalism, in the rapidity with which it provided pictures of current news events, its appeal to the emotions, and the involvement of its readers in the reporting process. This is the first book exclusively about the Illustrated Police News to reproduce the pictures as high quality images, provide a balanced account of its content and cover the full period of its publication. There is substantial new research into how the paper was produced, the men who made it a success, and the stories behind the pictures.