The Book Prize Index

The Italian Boy: Murder and Grave-Robbery in 1830s London

Sarah Wise

Describes the 1831 murder of a young vagrant and the sale of his body to a London medical college, a case that led to the arrest of his killers, "resurrection men" who acted to satisfy the demand for fresh cadavers for the study of human anatomy.

True Crime & JusticeTrue Crime & Justice · medium confidenceTrue Crime & Justice81 signalsLlm Classifier: True Crime & Justice -> True Crime & JusticeOpen Library: Poverty -> Society & CultureOpen Library: History -> HistoryLiterary Biography

Award History

0 wins · 1 total

AwardYearResultCategory / Notes
Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-FictionMajor2005FinalistSecondary source
View all award history (1)
Experimental book profileGenerated by GPT-5.4 nano · may contain inaccuracies

This is an unverified interpretation of the catalog description, offered as an opt-in discovery experiment—not as bibliographic fact.

  1. 01 Central figures

    None extracted with sufficient confidence.

  2. 02 Central places

    • London86%

  3. 03 Suggested argument

    The 1831 murder and subsequent sale of a young vagrant’s body in London exposed a grave-robbing “resurrection men” network operating to meet medical anatomy’s demand for fresh cadavers.

    Model confidence 62%

  4. 04 Reading orientation

    35 / 100 academic

    Serious trade

    An estimate of intended readership and scholarly apparatus—not quality or importance.

Confidence percentages are the model's own estimates. Profile confidence: 74%.