Crime At El Escorial

D.J. Walker is professor emerita at the University of New Orleans. She specializes in the late nineteenth-century social history of Spain and its principal colonies, Cuba and the Philippines. Her books include Representations of the Cuban and Philippine Insurrections on the Spanish Stage: 1887-1898 and Spanish Women and the Colonial Wars of the 1890s, as well as a translation of On Captivity.

• AcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter One: Mass Taste and Crime Reporting in the Spanish Press of the 1890sChapter Two: Fictionalizing the Escorial CrimeChapter Three: The Escorial Case as Rural GothicChapter Four: The Case of the “Niño de el Escorial” and the Attack on the JuryChapter Five: Missed OpportunitiesEpilogueBibliographyIndex

D. J. Walker’s Crime at El Escorial was a path-breaking study of the Spanish press and its influence on the public and jurisprudence. I know of no other historical examination of this subject area that is as richly detailed, comparative and fully researched. Professor Walker was able to coalesce impressive archival and literary sources in this volume. The addition of the epilogue to the revised edition brings the jury question to the forefront of the study. There are many problems with the jury system as currently practised here in the US and elsewhere. Crime at El Escorial brings a powerful, evocative historical element that should be welcome in any meaningful public discussion of the jury system and its equity. I recommend this work to anyone interested in such a discussion in the past or at present.