Cover
Halftitle page
Title page
Copyright page
Contents
Frequently Cited Texts and Abbreviations
Preface and Acknowledgements
Introduction: Growing Up to Be Hanged
Lamb
The pale criminals and the great criminals
The first part: Dickens
The second part: Derrida
Part One Dickens
and the Eighteenth Century
1 Abolitionism and Dickens
Dickens's letters
The Mannings
2 Fielding, Hogarth and Dickens
'Four Stages of Cruelty'
Fielding and murder
3 Barnaby Rudge, Poe and Caleb Williams
Poe, Godwin and Caleb Williams: 'An epoch in the mind'

'The Man of the Crowd' and the criminality of great cities
Dickens, Poe and secrecy
Part Two Derrida
The French Revolution Onwards
4 Deconstruction and Justice
'Force of Law'
The Beast and the Sovereign
5 The Death Penalty Seminars
On fascination
Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt
On the guillotine: Hugo and Turgenev
'The instant of my death'
Shakespeare and blood
The Death Penalty 2: Confession
Robespierre
6 Decapitation and A Tale of Two Cities
Secrecy
Violence and fascism
'I can devour thee'
7 On the USA: Violence and Terrorism

In Cold Blood and The Executioner's Song
Timothy McVeigh
Terror and suicide
In Conclusion
'New cruelty'
Index