ABSTRACT
The symbolism borrowed from Herbert Nehrlich’s poem to account for the speed with which the electric telegraph-“God’s lightning”1-referenced one particular murder committed on August 9, 1849, which heralded a revolution within the Victorian Age. When Maria Manning, along with her accomplice husband Frederick, was accused of the premeditated killing of Maria’s former lover Patrick O’Connor, “God’s lightning” proclaimed it “The Bermondsey Horror.”2 Reporters offered readers vivid depictions of the crime in shocking detail, and the murder fascinated famous contemporaries, including Charles Dickens and sensation novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon, both of whom used Manning as a prototype for literary constructs of the evil woman.
