“Bertolini seekes Paulina in marriage, but shee loves Sturio, and not himselfe: hee prayes her Brother Brellati his deare friend, to sollicit her for him, which he doth, but cannot prevaile: whereupon Bertolini lets fall some disgracefull speeches, both against her honour and his reputation: for which Brellati challengeth the field of him, where Bertolini kills him, and he flies for the same. Sturio seekes to marry her, but his Father will not consent thereunto, and conveyes him away secretly: for which two disasters, Paulina dies for sorrow. Sturio finds out Bertolini, and sends him a challenge, and having him at his mercy, gives him his life at his request: he afterwards very treacherously kils Sturio with a Petronell in the street from a window: he is taken for this second murther, his two hands cut off, then beheaded, and his body throwne into the River.”

Featured on PDR in the collection John Reynolds’ Book of Murder Tales (1621–1635)

We don’t know the year of John Reynolds’ birth or death, but according to the Dictionary of National Biography, he “flourished” between 1620 and 1640, at which time he must have been in his thirties and forties (give or take a few years). Born in Exeter — and known to his contemporaries as “John Reynolds, merchant of Exeter”, to distinguish him from other writers of the same name — he traveled on business to France, Spain, and probably Italy, where he collected the stories that make up his six-volume Triumphs of Gods Revenge and the Crying and Execrable Sin of (Wilful and Premeditated) Murther — one of the earliest examples of “true crime” writing in English.