The Wicked Boy: The Mystery of a Victorian Child Murderer

by Kate Summerscale

In East London in the summer of 1895, Robert Coombes (age thirteen) and his brother Nattie (age twelve) were arrested for matricide and sent for trial at the Old Bailey. Robert confessed to having stabbed his mother, but his lawyers argued that he was insane. The judge sentenced him to detention in Broadmoor, the most infamous criminal lunatic asylum in the land. Shockingly, Broadmoor turned out to be the beginning of a new life for Robert. At a time of great tumult and uncertainty, Robert Coombes's case crystallized contemporary anxieties about the education of the working classes, the dangers of pulp fiction, and evolving theories of criminality, childhood, and insanity. With riveting detail and rich atmosphere, Summerscale re-creates this terrible crime and its aftermath, uncovering an extraordinary story of man's capacity to overcome the past. --

• ISBN10: 1594205787
• ISBN13: 9781594205781
• Publish Date: 12 July 2016 (first published 5 May 2016)
• Publish Status: Remaindered
• Imprint: Penguin Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 400
• Language: English

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Interesting story but I wasn't caught by the storytelling.

Starts in the Victorian era, when a boy of 13, Robert Coombes and his 12 year old brother Nattie have 10 days of freedom until the smell from their house causes someone to investigate only to find that their mother is dead, their father is off at sea and they have recruited a family friend to help take care of them.

When the mother's body is examined they discover that she has been stabbed and Robert admits that he's the one who did it. The trial ends with him in Broadmoor, convicted. After many years he's declared sane and discharged and he goes to Australia. Then he enlists and becomes a stretcher bearer and musician for the Australian Army and lives into old age, showing compassion to a young boy who is beaten by his father, becoming a read father to him.

It's an interesting story of redemption and complicated life that made me think, though the writing style somehow left me cold.