“Why did Vinculus hate his father? Why did he rejoice when his father was hanged? Robert Findhelm was quite sure that the book was destroyed-that is plain. Nan1 told me Clegg2 had been hung for stealing a book, but Robert Findhelm had brought the charge of book-murder against Clegg. Clegg was the last man in England to be hanged for book-murder3.”
January-February 1812
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke
1Nan was one of Vinculus’s ex-wife’s
2Clegg was Vinculus’s biological father.
3Book-murder was a late addition to English magical law. The willful destruction of a book of magic merited the same punishment as a murder of a Christian.
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