From Hannibal Lecter to Norman Bates, Fagin to Bluebeard – many fictional monsters committing terrible crimes in the pages of some of your favourite novels were based on real life criminals. So, which literary villains were inspired by murderers and robbers known to the police? And why would authors want to use these characters in their stories?
The answer is obvious, of course. True crime is spectacularly popular today. And in truth, in different formats, it’s always been a talking point. We love to be horrified by the unspeakable deeds of those individuals devoid of any morality or compassion. I wrote a book on Jack the Ripper focussing on the Irish-American suspect, Francis Tumblety. Over several months, immersed in his sordid life, I became a little obsessed. These damaged souls and their chaotic lives. What’s not to like for a writer?
An early example of real-life villains in a literary setting can be found in the Divine Comedy by Dante. Journeying into hell, the protagonist encounters a roll-call of medieval celebrities being punished in gruesome ways. No reader would have failed to identify Pope Boniface VIII and King Philip IV of France being tormented by devils. One noble who Dante despised, Ezzelino da Romano, is to be seen boiling in a river of blood. And at the centre of hell, Satan is eating Judas Iscariot, Brutus, and Cassius.
The Beggar’s Opera – a collection of real-life thieves
It’s the 18th century, with its love of brutal satire, that gives us stories that lampoon or condemn public figures. The dramatist John Gay (1685-1732) was a member of the Scriblerus Club, which ridiculed hypocrisy in high society. It was in this vein that he wrote a very risky work, The Beggar’s Opera. The story is set in London’s criminal underworld where a dashing highwayman, Captain Macheath, marries Polly Peachum, the daughter of Peachum who is one of the city’s leading gangsters while also informing on his own gang members to the authorities.
Peachum is furious that his daughter has married Macheath and resolves to her his son-in-law hanged by betraying him to the aforementioned authorities. He’s imprisoned in Newgate Prison, escapes, is recaptured, and condemned to be hanged. At which point, the Beggar-narrator interrupts the play to declare that a story like this must end happily and therefore Macheath is reprieved.
The real-life characters would have been screamingly obvious to most in the audience. Peachum is Jonathan Wild (c.1682-1725) who posed as a vigilante, cleaning up the streets, styling himself the ‘Thief-Taker-General’. Unsurprisingly, he turned out to be in charge of a significant criminal empire and his crime-busting role was just a ruse for removing rivals. He was eventually hanged. As for Macheath, this romantic, masked robber was probably based on the French highwayman Claude Duval (c.1643-1670). He operated on the roads leading into north London – around Holloway, Highgate, and Islington – wearing rather ostentatious clothes.
The escape from Newgate Prison – where the Central Criminal Court (the ‘Old Bailey’) stands today – was undoubtedly influenced by Jack Shepherd (1702-1724), a young thief who sneaked out of Newgate on four occasions, outwitting Wild, the Thief-Taker-General. Daniel Defoe (c.1660-1731) was so taken by Shepherd that he wrote his biography while he was in prison. Defoe went on to write Robinson Crusoe.
Gay gives Peachum quite a respectable demeanour compared to the real thing. This was intended to convey the message that Britain was run by posh gangsters and it’s thought that the author had Robert Walpole (1676-1745) in mind as a king of establishment thieves. Walpole was the most powerful politician in Britain and the country’s first de facto Prime Minister.
So, there’s little doubt that this literary villain – Peachum – is based on the real life character of Jonathan Wild while also satirising the corrupt pomposity of Robert Walpole.
Fagin – based on “Ikey” Solomon?
Oliver Twist is beyond doubt the best known story by the novelist Charles Dickens (1812-1870) whose writings reflect his own insecure childhood and later life in the legal profession and journalism. Hence his understanding of the criminal types. While working as a legal clerk in the 1820s, he couldn’t fail to have noticed the high profile case of Isaac “Ikey” Solomon (c.1787-1850).
From a working-class Jewish family in the East End of London, Solomon ran a jewellers that in reality fenced stolen goods on an impressive scale. In 1810, he was convicted for stealing and held on a prison ship, the Zetland, moored on the river Thames. After being either mistakenly released or escaping, he resumed his illegal activities until 1827. In that year, his world came crashing down.
Put on trial at the Old Bailey, he was being taken from the court back to Newgate prison when he convinced his guards to take a detour into the East End to drop off his wife. And then he escaped. The guards were overpowered by friends waiting for him. However, first his wife and then Ikey were eventually transported to Australia. Transportation was an appalling punishment where the offender endured a long voyage, that might kill them anyway, before an effective life sentence of hard labour in one of Britain’s colonies.
It’s become the conventional wisdom to believe that when Dickens created Fagin – a Jewish criminal running a gang of boy thieves – he modelled his character on Ikey Solomon. Dickens certainly made it abundantly clear that Fagin was Jewish – so much so that he was accused of being bigoted in his own lifetime and toned the judaism down in later editions. The only obvious similarity was that when Solomon was arrested, his stash of gold and silver watches, and other sparkling items, were always detailed by journalists. Fagin is also pictured admiring his horde of ill-gotten gains. But beyond that, they don’t have a great deal in common.
So, Fagin as a literary villain has a tenuous connection to the real life Ikey Solomon though Dickens most likely had him in mind when he created the character.
Deacon Brodie – the man behind Jekyll and Hyde
William “Deacon” Brodie (1741-1788) was a pillar of the community, respected throughout the city of Edinburgh. Skilled cabinet maker and a city councillor who led a double life. Because in order to fund his gambling addiction and mistresses, Brodie took to a life of crime.
Astonishingly, Brodie was so trusted that he was hired for locksmithing and security in the homes of Edinburgh’s elite. He then used the knowledge – and wax impressions of clients’ keys – to go and rob the very same houses. His downfall came after a botched raid on the Excise Office in Chessel’s Court in 1788. Apparently he sang songs from The Beggar’s Opera while robbing the building. However, one of his accomplices, George Smith, was captured and turned king’s evidence, implicating Brodie and the rest of the gang.
Brodie fled to Amsterdam but was tracked down, extradited, and tried in Edinburgh, where the revelation of his secret criminal life scandalised the city’s establishment. He was convicted and, in a grim irony, hanged in October 1788 on a gallows he himself had helped design as a civic improvement. Brodie and Smith were executed on the same day and I found one newspaper report that makes chilling reading.
On the appointed day, Brodie appeared on the scaffold in a ‘handsome suit’ with his hair powdered in the style of the time. Looking every bit a respectable gentleman. Brodie bowed respectfully to the magistrate and the crowd, exhibiting incredible composure. Yet this was evidence of his double life. Criminal by night and law abiding citizen by day. A regular Jekyll and Hyde…
Which brings us to Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894), a Scottish author whose family owned a cabinet made by Brodie. Stevenson co-authored a play, Deacon Brodie, or The Double Life, which became the template for his blockbuster novel, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886). Brodie concealed his activities by being a pillar of the community. Jekyll uses science to transform himself from a legitimate, daytime figure to a grotesque monster by night.
Stevenson was exploring themes around our ability to have a dual identity – how we use a mask to project ourselves to society in one way while having a true nature that is very different. It was also a stinging critique of the prevailing Victorian hypocrisy. And there’s also a cautionary tale about unregulated science devoid of morality – a similar message to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Plus, Stevenson was a Scottish Calvinist – a brand of Protestantism in which we fight against our own inner sinfulness to try and reach God.
So, this literary villain with a double life certainly resembles Deacon Brodie and Stevenson had a proven interest in his story. But there’s another twist in this tale. Because in 1888, when Jekyll and Hyde was performed on the London stage, the actor Richard Mansfield (1857-1907) gave such a convincing performance that he was accused of being a real life serial killer terrorising London at that time: Jack the Ripper. Mansfield is pictured below during the gristly transformation.
It seems laughable but a theatregoer was so traumatised by Mansfield’s performance that they wrote to the police insisting that he must be the real life Jack the Ripper. The play had originally been a sell-out but the public mood turned against it. With women being eviscerated on the streets of Whitechapel, such a production seemed in terrible bad taste.
Professor Moriarty and Adam Worth – a weak comparison?
Professor James Moriarty is the intellectual equal and nemesis of that great fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes – created by the author, Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). It’s often been stated that Moriarty was based on the Victorian criminal mastermind, Adam Worth (c.1844-1902). However, Conan Doyle never made the comparison and I find it a little weak. Though there is one strong connection. Worth was referred to by the police as ‘the Napoleon of the criminal world’ and Holmes dubs Moriarty, ‘the Napoleon of crime’. It’s a noteworthy coincidence.
Worth was born into a poor Jewish German family and his surname may have been Werth, before being anglicised. As a toddler, his family emigrated to the United States and he enlisted on the Union side during the American Civil War. However, he was a ‘bounty jumper’ – collecting a cash reward for joining the army and then deserting. Only to join again, in another city, and pick up another bonus. This was a capital crime – meaning, it carried the death penalty.
Worth progressed into pickpocketing followed by bank robberies. Very soon, Worth was being tracked by the Pinkerton detective agency – a private sector law enforcement organisation. Feeling the heat, Worth made his way to England, assuming the identity of a Texas oil magnate. Based in London, he developed a criminal network and in 1876, stole a Thomas Gainsborough painting valued at 10,000 Guineas from a prestigious art gallery.
His story is one of fake identities and audacious crimes. Conan Doyle very likely came across Worth through a contact at the Pinkerton agency during a transatlantic ship crossing. Worth’s use of his network of criminals to commit the dirty deeds while remaining in the shadows is very much a Moriarty trait.
However, most Sherlock Holmes geeks believe his nemesis was a mix of several evil operators. Even Jonathan Wild – the influence on The Beggar’s Opera – has been cited as a possible model for Moriarty.
The real Psycho – Norman Bates or Ed Gein?
Alfred Hitchcock (1899-1980) was one of the greatest movie directors of all time who thrilled audiences with his horror films. In 1960, he injected new life into his career with the highly innovative Psycho with the infamous scene of a female character being stabbed to death while having a shower. The central character is Norman Bates, a painfully shy motel owner who is spurred on to kill women by the mummified body of his mother, concealed in the fruit cellar. I’m assuming everybody has seen this movie so spoiler alerts not required. But apologies if you haven’t.
The movie was based on a novel of the same name by Robert Bloch (1917-1994), a writer encouraged in his early years by the legendary master of ghoulish fiction, H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937). He was fascinated by serial killers such as Lizzie Borden and – inevitably – Jack the Ripper. However, the real life murderer who inspired his literary villain Norman Bates was Ed Gein (1906-1984) whose modus operandi was to steal corpses from graveyards and fashion their skin and bones into keepsakes – as well as slaying two women in cold blood.
But while Bloch acknowledged the influence of Gein on Norman Bates – he also flagged up the big differences in one interview:
“The real-life murderer was not the role model for my character Norman Bates. Ed Gein didn’t own or operate a motel. Ed Gein didn’t kill anyone in the shower. Ed Gein wasn’t into taxidermy. Ed Gein didn’t stuff his mother, keep her body in the house, dress in a drag outfit, or adopt an alternative personality. These were the functions and characteristics of Norman Bates, and Norman Bates didn’t exist until I made him up. Out of my own imagination, I add, which is probably the reason so few offer to take showers with me.”
There’s no doubt that Gein’s story weighed heavily on the development of Leatherface in The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Buffalo Bill in The Silence of the Lambs.
Who was Hannibal Lecter?
Journalist and author Thomas Harris (born 1940) travelled to Monterrey, Mexico, in the early 1960s to interview an American prisoner, Dykes Askew Simmons, convicted of three murders. The article was to appear in Argosy magazine. While at the prison, Harris came across Dr Salazar, the prison physician – an elegant chap with a highly educated turn of phrase. He gave Harris a very detailed psycho-analytical profile of Simmons.
The young journalist was so impressed by the medic that later on, he mentioned him to the prison governor. He then discovered that Dr Salazar was in fact a convicted murderer himself – real name: Alfredo Ballí Treviño. Turned out that Treviño (pictured below) was a Mexican surgeon who had killed and dismembered his boyfriend, Jesús Castillo Rangel.
Hannibal Lecter isn’t a carbon copy of Treviño but there are recognisable elements such as medical expertise, composure, elegance, intellectual sophistication, and knowledge of the criminal mind. The influence here is very clear.
You may be aware that I’ve written a book on the Irish-American suspect in the Jack the Ripper case – back in 1888. It’s an incredible story and took me a year to investigate. Get your copy at Amazon and other online bookstores.
