LADY KILLERS AND FEMME FATALES - STORIES OF MURDER MOST FOUL - HAVE GRIPPED PUBLIC IMAGINATION FOR CENTURIESEarly Modern Britain was awash with pamphlets, ballads, woodcuts broadcasting bloodthirsty tales of traitorous wives, greedy mistresses, cunning female poisoning lacing the supper with deadly substances; of child killers and spiteful witches, stories of women wholly and unnaturally wicked. These were printed or sung, tacked the walls of alehouses, sold in the streets for pennies and read voraciously to thrill all. But why? When the vast majority of murders then (and now) are committed by men.In this bold, page-turning new history, former police officer and historian Blessin Adams tells stories of women whose violent crimes shattered the narrow confines of their gender - and whose notoriety revealed a society that was at once repulsed by and attracted to murderous female rebellion. Based on detailed research in court archives, each chapter explores murders that thrilled and terrified the British public; the crimes that caused the most concern and provoked the most debate. Women in this period killed rarely, and when they did it was usually within the context of extreme provocation or domestic violence. Adams has the ability of the best crime novelists in recreating the setting in which each case occurred as well as the motivations of each perpetrator.Thou Savage Woman reminds us that women in the past had voices, that they sought to control their bodies and their environments and that they also had the capacity for committing acts of unspeakable violence.
| ISBN: | 9780008500177 |
| Publication date: | 13th February 2025 |
| Author: | Blessin Adams |
| Publisher: | William Collins an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers |
| Format: | Hardback |
| Pagination: | 304 pages |
| Genres: |
True crime: serial killers and murderers True stories of survival of abuse and injustice European history: medieval period, middle ages |