PAGES : The Seduction of Villainy

While heroes get the medals, villains always have the best lives.

So thinks British writer John Mortimer, who has pulled together a book of the worst of humanity--real and imagined--in “The Oxford Book of Villains.”

“Heroes are really quite dull. It’s really hard to write about good people,” said Mortimer, creator of “Rumpole of the Bailey.”

The spirit of evil takes many forms: Captain Hook, Milton’s Satan, Lizzie Borden, Casanova. To be a good villain, Mortimer said, “you have to seduce people and be witty about it and go down to hell with good grace.”

A barrister, Mortimer has broken down the facets of criminality. His anthology reads much like a prison, where the inept burglars are cordoned off from the major crooks, the hypocrites segregated from the tyrants and murderers. Seducers like Don Juan get their own chapter. Even the serpent in Genesis gets a mention.

Mortimer saves most of his contempt for hanging judges and heartless bureaucrats: “Murderers are much better than them.”

Alas, villainy isn’t quite what it used to be. “There are not great villains anymore,” Mortimer complained. “Society is generally less moral. Villainy has become quite commonplace. If you were breaking the laws of God and civility, it is much more exciting.”