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Best-selling tale of murder in Victorian England wins Samuel Johnson prize for nonfiction

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From: AP Worldstream
Date: 20080715
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The story of a murder case that gripped Victorian England won Britain's richest nonfiction book prize Tuesday.

Kate Summerscale's "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: Or The Murder at Road Hill House" beat five other titles for the 30,000 pound (US$60,000) Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction.

Summerscale's best-selling book tells the story of an 1860 child murder that tested the mettle of one of Scotland Yard's first detectives and inspired writers including Charles Dickens, Wilkie Collins and Arthur Conan Doyle.

Named in honor of the 18th-century essayist and ...

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