William Corder and the Red Barn Murder ― Journeys of the Criminal Body

On 18 May 1827 the Suffolk farmer William Corder killed and buried his lover Maria Martin in the Red Barn at Polstead. The discovery of this murder the following year set off a feeding-frenzy in which Corder became one of the most notorious villains in British history, a celebrity criminal for preachers, ballad singers, anatomists, and generations of theatre managers. The Red Barn was almost destroyed for souvenirs and relics while Corder's corpse was dissected and displayed, galvanized and scalped.

This original study maps out the remarkable journey of Corder's body from dismemberment to remembrance. Rather than providing a traditional historical model, the book challenges concepts of death and execution. What does it mean for a criminal to be declared dead? How far were medical authorities and public audiences actors in the theatrical production of criminal justice? What about popular legends and dreams about criminals, about the places they haunt and the sites of their burial or display? In short, what happens to the power of the criminal once he/she has been declared 'dead' and punished?

Positioned within the burgeoning field of medical humanities, McCorristine engages with current scholarship that is placing culture and power at the centre of debates surrounding criminal justice and public punishment. Death, it is clear, is not a terminus but a journey.

Shane McCorristine is a Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Leicester and a College Lecturer in Geography at the University of Cambridge, UK.