Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal (Annotated Edition)

Kind Hearts and Coronets

By: Roy Horniman

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

“Like an antique revolver, Horniman’s murderous comedy is precision tooled, elegant, and must be handled with care” – Patrick Kincaid, author of The Continuity Girl

To celebrate the 70th anniversary of the release of Ealing Studio’s sublime comedy classic Kind Hearts and Coronets, D’Ascoyne Press are republishing the novel that originally inspired the film.

Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal is a 1907 darkly comic novel written by Roy Horniman, telling the tale of the eponymous anti-hero’s campaign to cut back his family tree and inherit the aristocratic status of his hated relatives.

Told from his condemned cell, the story charts – in surprisingly lurid detail – how Rank goes from the status of poor relation, to advancing in life by killing off the six relatives standing in the way of him succeeding to his family seat.

Set against a backdrop of Edwardian snobbery, upper-class ritual, and casual antisemitism, Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal is darker than the film it went on to inspire.

It is also a fast-paced, engaging, and beautifully-rendered thriller – both disturbing and funny in equal measure.