Dark London

From dark crimes of passion to shocking tales of grave robbing, gruesome murders, dens of iniquity, Victorian seances and haunted graveyards - not far beneath London's everday bustle and glitter there has long been a fascinatingly rich underworld of criminality, superstition, scandal and macabre debauchery. Explore this rich seam of morbid history, case-by-case, with social historian Dr Drew Gray, a specialist in the history of crime and punishment. Who were 'The London Burkers', for example, whose ringleader confessed to stealing and selling nearly 1,000 dead bodies to keen 1830s anatomists? Why were so many opium dens located in Limehouse, and how did they become so emblematic of the city's debauched side? And why was there so much public panic about crime in Victorian London, and how did the city's notoriously rough prisons, courts, workhouses and houses of correction deal with its perpetrators? Dark London brings together the history of the city's seamier side, picking out the most scandalous, curious and bizarre aspects to portray London's shadowy and fascinating underbelly.