“Pisani betrayeth Gasparino of his Mistrisse Christeneta. Gasparino challengeth Pisani for this Disgrace, and kills him in the Field; He after continueth his Sute to Christeneta. She dissembles her Malice for Pisani his Death. She appoynts Gasparino to meet her in a Garden; and there causeth Bianco and Brindoli to murther him. They are all three taken, and executed for the same.”

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.