Rogue Scholar: The Sinister Life and Celebrated Death of Edward H. RulloffThis is the tale of the insalubrious and utterly failed life of the notorious nineteenth-century thief, murderer, professional impostor, and would-be philologist Edward Rulloff, who was condemned to die and hanged for his crimes. The life of Rulloff is a sordid account of misguided genius and abysmal consequences. Those who loved him courted disaster, and, in every case, the courtship flowered into catastrophe. Richard Bailey's narrative, calm and impartial yet spiked with wit and suspense, captures perfectly the slightly haunted and overwrought air of Victorian rural America, calling on newspaper accounts, interviews, and eyewitness reports of the day. Inevitably, the quiet accumulation of details builds to a story that transcends its individual events to touch on the universal themes of any age. Rogue Scholar is about the evil of one man who lived a life of deception and crime. Yet in a larger sense it is also the portrait of a condemned soul in its final hours, an examination of the death penalty, and a reminder that media sensationalism is nothing new. |
Contents
Guilty Secrets | 1 |
Another Line of Work | 13 |
Oh That Dreadful Hour | 25 |
Copyright | |
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Al Jarvis American Amherst College appeared asked Auburn Auburn Prison Beale Binghamton body brain Broome County brother burglars Burrows cell Champlain chest Clarion Clarion County clerk conviction corpses Court Crapsey crime criminal Dan Burr death declared defense door Dyer Edward H escape evidence Finch George Becker Greek guilty Halberts Halliday Ham Freeman hanging Harriet head heard Historical Society human Ibid Ithaca jail Ithaca Journal Jacob James Jane Jarvis January Jarvis and Dexter Judge Hogeboom jurors jury language later lawyer letter Library Lives locked Merrick morning murder mystery newspaper night o'clock Owego paper Pennsylvania person Peter Hopkins philological photograph phrenological Priscilla prisoner question Reports of Decisions Robertson Rulloff Rulofson Schutt Secrecy Removed Seelye seemed sentence Sheriff Ives skull story testified testimony thought tion told Tompkins County took Trial and Execution Veil of Secrecy wife words wrote York Sun