From the trial and execution of King Charles I of England in 1649 to the reading of A.E. Houseman's poems by Clarence Darrow in a Chicago murder trial in 1924, writers have registered their opinions and impressions of both public and private forms of execution. This collection of ten essays examines in detail the literary responses of various writers to the social issue of capital punishment during this four-century span.

Several of the essays focus on one or two writers in particular-Henry Fielding and Samuel Johnson, for example. Others cover several writers or genres or apply insights from other disciplines (psychology, history, sociology) to make larger points about punishment, crime and crowd behavior. All of the essays seek to illuminate-by referring to the British experience in the past-what continues to be a controversial issue in United States society.