A Handbook on Hanging

by Charles Duff (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2011

  $4.69

  A Handbook on Hanging is a satiric tribute to that unappreciated mainstay of civilisation: the hangman. With barbed wit, Charles Duff not only writes of hanging, but also of electrocution, decapitation and gassing; of innocent men executed and of executions botched; of bloodlust mobs and the political expedients of the great. A classic satire, admired by Bertholt Brecht and Dylan Thomas, Duff's polemic makes it clear that whatever else capital punishment may be said to be - justice, vengeance, a deterrent - it is certainly killing.

• Used

  Paperback
  2006

  $3.25

  A tribute to that most despised public servant, the executioner, and to the author's 'art'. In his treatise on judicial killing, whether it is by electrocution, hanging or gassing, he writes with deceptive levity about botched executions, the bloodlust of witnesses, innocent victims and a legal system that demands retribution. The result is a stunning satire of capital punishment, a polemic that reveals the hypocrisy and self-delusion inherent in a society that demands 'an eye for an eye' yet strives to make state-sponsored killing humane.