A Historical Novel By Robert Graves

Like a somewhat expanded "Annals of Crime" in the New Yorker magazine, They Hanged My Saintly Billy explores in great detail the circumstances surrounding a spectacular criminal career. Mr. Graves has chosen the story of Dr. William Palmer, who was accused of doing in fourteen people, the majority by poison, and who was publicly hanged in 1856 after being convicted of poisoning John Parsons Cook, a fellow aficionado of horse-racing.

Mr. Graves seems convinced of Palmer's innocence of this particular crime, although there is little doubt that the doctor saw to it that his alcoholic brother drank himself quickly to death after insuring his life for a considerable sum. Palmer also got several girls in the family way, and there is good reason to suppose he doped race horses, robbed some of his fellow sportsmen, and was generally heedless of most conventional responsibilities.

He managed, however, to make a good impression on some of his colleagues and fellow-townsmen by his generosity and good temper, and his mother exclaimed, after the execution, "Yes, they hanged my saintly Billy! He was a bit of a scamp right enough, but a good son to me; the best of the brood, except Sarah, and no murderer."

The flagrant injustice of William Palmer's trial would have been enough to make almost anyone sympathize. Of the three judges, two, including the Lord Chief Justice who presided, were set against Palmer from the start, and Mr. Baron Alderson--who was a personal enemy of Palmer's barrister--interfered in the trial with sarcastic comments on the evidence and counsel's efforts. The Lord Chief Justice showed open prejudice against the defending counsel, and even misdirected the jury.

The life and death of Dr. William Palmer is a sordid, shabby story of a man of natural ability who was never more than a step ahead of his creditors or his latest female conquest, but Graves has achieved the maximum of variety and color by making up accounts of people who knew Palmer and who tell their stories to the invisible narrator. Further, he has written in a remarkable imitation of Victorian style: "If the girl anticipated marriage by granting him what he asked, Palmer at once cooled towards her, as too giddy to be his wife; if on the other hand, she refused, he thought her cold, and abandoned the case." The book is lively, full of spirit and incidental information--after the reference to the training of doctors, for example, one wonders how anybody at all survived adolescence.

One final word: the publishers have seen fit to place on the front of the dust jacket part of Graves' own description of his book as follows: "A novel filled with sex, drink, dope, horse racing, incest, suicides, murders, scandalous legal proceedings, cross examinations, inquests and a good public hanging." None of these are described in the titillating detail which might be expected. The book, however, is a good study of a bad character, and another, though tiny, star in Mr. Graves' crown.