Shakespeare References in Murder For Profit

William Bolitho makes a few references to Shakespeare and his works in Murder For Profit, a book about the crimes of serial killers who murdered for money. In the chapter about G.J. Smith, Bolitho writes, “To love oneself like a Troppmann or Smith is a lifelong paroxysm in which the adoration of Saint John of the Cross, the jealousy of Othello, the steadfastness of a Dante is imitated” (p. 108). The second reference is to Shakespeare’s poem Venus And Adonis, and more precisely is a reference to the poem’s dedication. Interestingly, it is one of the murderers who actually quotes the lines. Bolitho writes, “Pleased with this effort and still full of zeal, Smith went on to write another to the brother, which begins with the peerless lines: Dear Sir – I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to you nor how you will censure me for using so strong a prop for supporting so grave a burden” (pages 132-133). Shakespeare’s dedication to Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, reads, in part, “I know not how I shall offend in dedicating my unpolished lines to your lordship, nor how the world will censure me for choosing so strong a prop to support so weak a burden.” The book also contains a reference to Much Ado About Nothing, and specifically to one of its characters, with Bolitho writing, “yet the very act of giving a powerful commercial organization a direct interest that the victim should not die wakens an enemy whose determination and acumen is more dangerous to the assassin than all the Dogberrys of all the local inquest courts” (p. 142). The book’s final reference is to Shakespeare himself. Bolitho writes, “In his intercourse they felt the divine glows of idealized emotion, which only Shakespeare and Beethoven can give to the sophisticated” (p. 195).

Murder For Profit was published in 1926. The edition I read was published in 1964.