The opening chapters reveal that the spectator is Edward Pierce. In the middle of 1854, a gentleman with a mysterious background and dapper appearance sees a man fighting with the train’s guard die when he is thrown off the train to his death. Crichton’s fictionalized version of events includes characters based on the historical figures involved: Edward Pierce (based on William Pierce) is the ringleader of the criminals, Robert Agar (based on Edward Agar), the coquettish Miss Miriam, the cabby Barlow, and the snakesman, Clean Willy. Crichton is especially interested in mid-century Victorian England’s circumstances of increased wealth, greater personal liberties, and improved living conditions-circumstance whose consequence was a subculture of crime represented by his chief protagonists, who intercepted £12,000 of gold between London and Paris. Crichton describes the Victorian landscape of the historical crime as one that saw unprecedented urbanization and industrialization: the population of England doubled between 18, and the Liverpool & Manchester Railway’s opening in 1830 completely transformed the way people traveled, as well as the urban topography. In his introduction, Crichton affirms that his subject is this historical robbery of the same name, also called “The Crime of the Century” by contemporary Victorians. Michael Crichton’s The Great Train Robbery is a historical novel based on an 1855 train heist involving the theft of a quantity of gold traveling from England to France as payment for soldiers in the Crimean War.
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