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Rosemary Hill
- Sentimental Murder: Love and Madness in the 18th Century by John Brewer Buy this book
The mutable nature of our relationship with the past is the underlying theme of Sentimental Murder, John Brewer’s compelling and surprising pursuit, across two and a half centuries, of the events of a single evening in 1779. What happened in Covent Garden on 7 April was simple enough and largely undisputed at the time or later. Soon after 11.30 p.m., Martha Ray, the Earl of Sandwich’s long-standing mistress, mother of nine of his children, was shot dead outside Covent Garden Theatre. Her killer was known to her. He was a young clergyman, James Hackman, who immediately attempted to kill himself but failed and was soon afterwards tried and executed for the murder.
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Rosemary Hill’s book about Pugin, God’s Architect, is out in paperback this summer.
Other articles by this contributor:
Making Do and Mending · Rosemary Hill reads Penelope Fitzgerald’s Letters
Keep Calm · Desperate Housewives
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