The Executioner Always Chops Twice: Ghastly Blunders on the Scaffold

ISBN-10
073947538X
ISBN-13
9780739475386
Category
Executions and executioners
Pages
239
Language
English
Published
2002
Author
Geoffrey Abbott

Description

A morbidly fascinating mixture of bungled executions ,strange last requests, and classic final one-liners from medieval times to the present day. Sometimes it's hard to be an executioner, trying to keep someone from popping up to make a quip when they should have spectacularly sunk without a trace. Or to be told that the condemned to the guillotine won't have a last drink for fear of "completely losing his head." The business of death can be absurd, and nothing illustrates this better than these tales of the gruesome and frankly ridiculous ways in which a number of ill-fated unfortunates met (or failed to meet) their maker. Did you know: When Sir Thomas More was ordered to position his head on the block, he said "though you have warrant to cut off my head, you have none to cut off my beard?" When the guillotine took three strokes to sever the neck of Isabeau Herman, the mob attempted to stone the executioner to death for cruelty? After the English hanged the pirate Captain Kidd they chained his body to a stake on the Thames River as a warning to seafarers? From the strange to the gruesome, from the weird to the completely unbelievable, The Executioner Always Chops Twice is popular history at its best: witty, lively, and wonderfully bizarre.

Get the book

Amazon.com
Amazon.com
Search the book
eBay.com
eBay.com
Search the book

Other editions

Similar books

  • A Tale of Two Cities
    A Tale of Two Cities
    By Charles Dickens

    A Tale of Two Cities CHARLES DICKENS CHAPTER XI A Companion Picture ♡ A “ companion piece ” or “ companion picture ” is a second picture that offers a slightly different view or treatment of a theme established in the original .

  • A Tale of Two Cities
    A Tale of Two Cities
    By Charles Dickens

    This edition uses the text as it appeared in its first serial publication in 1859 to convey the full scope of Dickens's vision, and includes the original illustrations by H. K. Browne ('Phiz').

  • Innocent Blood
    Innocent Blood
    By Roger Webster, Graham Jooste, Graham K. Jooste

    99 INNOCENT BLOOD recounts the heartwrenching stories of Cape rebels and republican soldiers executed by the British during the Anglo - Boer War . The Boer republics of the Transvaal and Orange Free State and the burgers of the Cape ...

  • Guillotine: The Timbers of Justice
    By Robert Frederick Opie

    This work traces the development of the guillotine over nearly two centuries, recounting the stories of famous executions, the lives of the executioners and the scientific research into whether the head retained consciousness after it was ...

  • A Tale of Two Cities - Literary Touchstone Edition
    A Tale of Two Cities - Literary Touchstone Edition
    By Charles Dickens

    This Prestwick House Literary Touchstone Edition? includes a glossary and reader's notes to help the modern reader contend with Dickens's complex approach to the human condition.Set against the backdrop of the French Revolution, A Tale of ...

  • A Tale of Two Cities
    By Charles Dickens, Brian Bartell

    The inhabitants of two cities--including a doctor, his devoted daughter, the young French aristocrat she loves, and their English friend--are swept into the tide of the French Revolution.

  • Executioner: Pierrepoint: An Autobiography
    Executioner: Pierrepoint: An Autobiography
    By Albert Pierrepoint

    Albert Pierrepoint became an executioner in 1931, at the age of 27, and resigned his office as Official Executioner in 1956 .

  • The History of Torture and Execution
    The History of Torture and Execution
    By Jean Kellaway

    The History of Torture and Execution examines these fascinating but grisly subjects by time, region, and method.

  • The History of Torture and Execution: From Early Civilization Through Medieval Times to the Present
    The History of Torture and Execution: From Early Civilization Through Medieval Times to the Present
    By Jean Kellaway

    More than 180 black-and-white and color images illustrate the many and varied engines of this final punishment, and the inclusion of stories told by the victims themselves gives chilling insight into the horrors faced by prisoners condemned ...

  • The Illustrated History of Torture: From the Roman Empire to the War on Terror
    The Illustrated History of Torture: From the Roman Empire to the War on Terror
    By Jack Vernon

    This book examines what constitutes torture, the etymology of torture terms and whether torture can ever be justified.