Bury left his autobiography with his agent

[Boggles]

Nothing new yet but I came across this snippet. It reports that during his incarceration Bury was doing a lot of writing.

Apparently he left these papers with his agent. It is doubtful that they can be recovered. However I have made some enquiry and will update you on the small chance anything turns up. Its worth an ask.

[Rosella]

^ Sorry to interrupt in this way, but the article's assertion that Bury had a literary agent intrigued me. What was the Home Office policy on people arraigned on a capital charge writing memoirs etc for publication at this time?

I know that in Britain it became quite customary in the 20th century for deals to be done between tabloid newspapers and some people awaiting trial for murder. If the case was considered newsworthy enough the newspaper involved would help pay for a barrister for the accused. In exchange the accused person agreed to write his thoughts for the newspaper if he was found guilty and if found not guilty his feelings at being proclaimed innocent.

However, that's a bit different to a prisoner awaiting a judicial hanging proposing to publish his life story. I know that the mass murderer Frederick Deeming was supposed to have written his memoirs while in the condemned cell at the Melbourne Jail. The prison authorities confiscated the work and I presume it was destroyed.

[Wyatt Earp]

Well-spotted, Boggles, and good luck to you in your search for Bury’s autobiography. Tweedie is described as Bury’s “agent” in the opening sentence of the article, so I suspect he was the person who took possession of the manuscript.

What I find significant here is that this memoir, in which Bury no doubt tells the world what a wonderful guy he is, is confined to his “early life.” There’s apparently nothing in it about what he’d been doing during the past year—you know, when women were turning up murdered and mutilated in the East End of London—nor is he evidently handing out the names of his friends and associates from his East End days—you know, people who could potentially be questioned by the police. This is assuming it was a completed manuscript.

[Boggles]

Tweedie is described as Bury’s “agent” in the opening sentence of the article, so I suspect he was the person who took possession of the manuscript.

Thanks Wyatt, yes its this firm that i am going to (although they have moved offices and a lot of water passed under the bridge). I don't know how these places work wrt archiving old cases/papers. Bury was the last person hanged in Dundee and it was a memorable case, so there is a chance. Still i dont think there's much hope but if anything turns up I will be sure to upload it here first.

[Boggles]

This is assuming it was a completed manuscript.

there is a secondary source that Bury spent a lot of time writing, James Berry said he was writing a lot of religious stuff prior to his hanging.

[Mayerling]

Well-spotted, Boggles, and good luck to you in your search for Bury’s autobiography. Tweedie is described as Bury’s “agent” in the opening sentence of the article, so I suspect he was the person who took possession of the manuscript.

What I find significant here is that this memoir, in which Bury no doubt tells the world what a wonderful guy he is, is confined to his “early life.” There’s apparently nothing in it about what he’d been doing during the past year—you know, when women were turning up murdered and mutilated in the East End of London—nor is he evidently handing out the names of his friends and associates from his East End days—you know, people who could potentially be questioned by the police. This is assuming it was a completed manuscript.

One really can't tell what any of these felons facing death would write - Deeming also was supposed to have written a memoir that would (in his words) "astound the world", so in that case it probably was full of lies. Amelia Dyer, the baby farmer murderess, wrote an entire set of memoir books, and when asked by the unimpressed warden if she had anything else to say about what she did, she pointed to the pile of books and said, "Isn't this enough?"

The only two people whose prison memoirs or writings were published that I can think of were Oscar Wilde's ("De Profundis" and "The Ballad of Reading Gaol", and the American serial killer Carl Pazram (his memoirs were published back in the 1960s). Supposedly Robert Stroud, "The Birdman of Alcatraz" left a book criticizing the American penal system.

Jeff

[Wyatt Earp]

Jeff, you are correct that no one knows what is in Bury’s memoir—and unless by some miracle Boggles or someone else can recover the document, which is probably no longer in existence, none of us will ever know. That said, since the article indicates that the memoir is devoted to his early life, it’s reasonable to expect that it was devoted to his early life. And given all that we know about Bury, it’s reasonable to expect that he would have tried to cast himself in a positive light. In his confession letter, for example, which was written shortly after the memoir, he blames Ellen for her murder, suggesting that it was her “character” that led to it. This gives us a glimpse into how Bury might have dealt with any misdeeds from his early life that he cared to include in his memoir. But yes, the content of the memoir remains a mystery.

[Semper_Eadem]

The infamous H. H Holmes supposedly left a Biography or was working on one. All I have been able to dig up on Holms though was his 8 page confession which was published by Hearst in "The Philadelphia North American" on Saturday April 11, 1896.

[Single-O-Seven]

I always have my fingers crossed that an item like this will turn up. It may prove invaluable toward finding a solution, or as likely not, but it will be incredibly interesting regardless. A number of gaps could be plugged and new areas of research stimulated by such a find. I would like to think that if it went to a legal office for filing, it should still be out there, barring water or fire damage, or accidental tossing out by a clerk.