Book Review:
John T. Noonan, Jr., Cannibalism and the Common Law (reviewing A.W. Brian Simpson’s Cannibalism and the Common Law: The Story of the Tragic Last Voyage of the Mignonette and the Strange Legal Proceedings to Which it Gave Rise), 63 Texas L. Rev. 749 (1984).
 

Abstract:
The famous case Regina v. Dudley is the focus of Brian Simpson’s Cannibalism and the Common Law. Jurisprudentially, Regina v. Dudley poses in the starkest terms the question whether the ordinary law of homicide should apply in desperate circumstances. The net effect of Simpson’s work is to turn Regina v. Dudley from a case upholding a principle into the story of a victim, Tom Dudley. Although Noonan applauds Simpson’s methodology, he finds himself out of sympathy with the message Simpson indirectly conveys.