{"title":"Jane Housham","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"apprentice-of-split-crow-lane-book-jane-housham-9781786481580","title":"The Apprentice of Split Crow Lane","description":"A Victorian Murder. A Victorian Madman. A Modern Judgement.  Gateshead, April 1866  Five-year-old Sarah Melvin was walking along Split Crow Lane looking for her father when she disappeared. Later that night a couple walking home from the pub tripped over her body.   Sarah was the child of Irish immigrants who had been drawn to the North-east in search of work. Poor, perceived with prejudice, they quickly came under suspicion of killing their own child.  The true murderer was a misfit whose social awkwardness stopped him ever rising above apprentice. He would eventually make clear exactly why he killed Sarah - and the reason would scandalise the whole country, yet to him had a dreadful logic.   Told here for the first time, this is an extraordinary story of sexual deviance and murder, offering a chance to reassess a most unexpected judgement with new insight. In lively, empathic prose, Jane Housham explores psychiatry, the justice system and the media in mid-Victorian England to reveal a surprisingly modern state of affairs.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49508417208593,"sku":"GOR008107483","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49653505032465,"sku":"GOR012243946","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ WELL_READ \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49654517137681,"sku":"GOR010705354","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1786481588.jpg?v=1751153365"},{"product_id":"apprentice-of-split-crow-lane-book-jane-housham-9781786481603","title":"The Apprentice of Split Crow Lane","description":"A Victorian Murder. A Victorian Madman. A Modern Judgement.  Gateshead, April 1866  The Apprentice of Split Crow Lane takes the forgotten case of a child murder in 1866 as a springboard to delve deeply into the pysche of the Victorians. What Jane Housham finds, in this exploration of guilt, sexual deviance and madness, is a diagnosis that is still ripe for the challenging and a sentence that provokes even our liberal modern judgement.   Set around Gateshead, it is a revelatory social history of the North - an area growing in industry and swelling with immigration, where factory workers are tinged blue and yellow by chemicals, the first tabloids are printed, children are left alone by working parents and haystack fires sweep the county in rebellion against the introduction of the police force. Into this landscape, a five-year-old Irish girl named Sarah Melvin sets out over the fell to look for her father, and a troubled young man makes a frightening leap of logic to save his own skin.  Told here for the first time, this is an extraordinary story of sexual deviance and murder. In lively, empathic prose, Jane Housham explores psychiatry, the justice system and the media in mid-Victorian England to reveal a surprisingly modern state of affairs.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49514432626961,"sku":"GOR008689309","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/178648160X.jpg?v=1751185400"},{"product_id":"blow-ups-book-jane-housham-9781919619705","title":"Blow-Ups","description":null,"brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ -","offer_id":51058959909137,"sku":"","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51058962366737,"sku":"NIN9781919619705","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1919619704.jpg?v=1751281964"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-jane-housham.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}