Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen's prayer book to be auctioned
A prayer book that once belonged a notorious murderer who poisoned and dismembered his wife before burying her remains under their home is to go under the hammer.The leather-bound book is signed by Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen, who was hanged in 1910 for killing his wife Cora.The American homeopath claimed Cora, a music hall singer, had left him, but police later found her boneless torso hidden under their cellar.The auction will be held by Richard Winterton Auctioneers at Lichfield Auction Centre in Staffordshire on 24 March.
The grisly case scandalised Edwardian London and is one of the most infamous of the 20th Century.Cora's remains, which were said to contain traces of a toxin, were identified through a scar on her stomach, though her head, limbs and skeleton were never discovered. Crippen was apprehended at sea by Scotland Yard detectives, who pursued him when he fled to Canada with his mistress, Ethel Le Neve.At the pair's subsequent trial, Le Neve was acquitted but the doctor was found guilty in just 27 minutes and hanged at Pentonville Prison on 23 November 1910.
Cora's disappearance has captured the imagination of writers and dramatists over the years, not least because Crippen went to the gallows protesting his innocence, and it has been suggested he was wrongly hanged.An attempt by a descendant to secure a posthumous pardon for him in 2009 failed, after the Criminal Cases Review Commission refused to send the case to the Court of Appeal.
It is alleged the doctor had the book of common prayer, currently owned by a Staffordshire collector, in prison before his execution.It is estimated the lot will reach between £250 and £350, however Crippen's prescription books have previously failed to sell at auction."This prayer book is a chilling artefact of one of Britain's most notorious crimes," said auctioneer Richard Winterton."Much has been written about the case since it happened 115 years ago and it has inspired countless films, plays and TV programmes."
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