Of Desire, Deaths, and “Dollymops”

With a BBC-TV production of The Crimson Petal and the White, based on Michael Faber’s 2002 novel of the same name, set to debut tonight in the UK, historical novelist James McCreet (The Thieves’ Labyrinth) provides--in a post for It’s a Crime! (or a Mystery)--some background on the sorrowful and often short lives of Victorian prostitutes, who are so central to Faber’s tale. Read it here.