The Criminal - Illustrated

By: Havelock Ellis

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

This is a new edition of “The Criminal,” originally published in 1890 by Scribner & Welford, of New York. Part of the project Immortal Literature Series of classic literature, this is a new edition of the classic work published in 1890—not a facsimile reprint. Obvious typographical errors have been carefully corrected and the entire text has been reset and redesigned by Pen House Editions to enhance readability, while respecting the original edition. The eBook edition was designed in an elegant style and set to take full advantage of the readers' features. “The Criminal” is a remarkable work on criminal anthropology—a new science which arose in Italy in the nineteenth century. Full of fascinating interest, it is one of the very first works on criminology written in English about the scientific study of the criminal. In 1902, the Westminster Review recommended the book saying that “as a handbook for legislators, jurists, and prison officials it is of paramount value.” In “The Criminal,” Havelock Ellis arrays his facts in order, providing plenty of data and stating his findings with accuracy when describing the physical, moral, social, emotional and religious aspects, among many others, related to what Cesare Lombroso termed the “born criminal,” and what Ellis preferred to call the “instinctive criminal.” “The Criminal” became one of the main sources researchers seek for information on “born” or “instinctive criminals.” About the Author: Born in Surrey, England, in 1859, Havelock Ellis was considered by the overwhelming majority of critics as the best translator of “Germinal,” Émile Zola`s masterpiece. Ellis was a social activist, a physician and a psychologist, whose best-known works concern sexuality and criminology. In 1890 he wrote “A New Spirit,” a collection of literary essays on Diderot, Heine, Whitman, Ibsen, and Tolstoi, and Ellis’s attempt to synthesize science and religious mysticism; and in 1898 he wrote “Affirmations,” which contains essays on Nietzsche, Casanova, Zola, Huysmans, and St. Francis. In 1897, he published “Sexual Inversion,” the first medical text in English about homosexuality, which he had co-authored with John Addington Symonds in an earlier edition, and which became a part of Ellis’s six-volume “Studies in the Psychology of Sex.” Havelock Ellis died in Suffolk, England, in 1939.