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Palgrave Macmillan

Nineteenth-Century Female Poisoners

Three English Women Who Used Arsenic to Kill

  • Book
  • © 2015

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Authors:
  1. Victoria M. Nagy
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Table of contents (8 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
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  2. Introduction

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 1-10

  3. Crime in Nineteenth-Century England: Decline, Causes and Concerns

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 11-32

  4. Broadening the Scope: Moving beyond Simple Sources

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 33-58

  5. Poisoning Crimes in the United Kingdom, 1839–51

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 59-76

  6. The Archetypical Poisoning Woman: The Cases of Sarah Chesham

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 77-113

  7. Death Clubs, Secret Poisonings and an Execution: The Case of Mary May

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 114-140

  8. Fallen Woman or Bad Witnesses? The Case of Hannah Southgate

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 141-159

  9. Conclusion

    • Victoria M. Nagy
    Pages 160-166

  10. Back Matter

    Pages 167-224
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Keywords

About this book

Nineteenth-Century Female Poisoners investigates the Essex poisoning trials of 1846 to 1851 where three women were charged with using arsenic to kill children, their husbands and brothers. Using newspapers, archival sources (including petitions and witness depositions), and records from parliamentary debates, the focus is not on whether the women were guilty or innocent, but rather on what English society during this period made of their trials and what stereotypes and stock-stories were used to describe women who used arsenic to kill. All three women were initially presented as 'bad' women but as the book illustrates there was no clear consensus on what exactly constituted bad womanhood.

About the author

Victoria M. Nagy received her PhD from the Centre for Women's Studies and Gender Research, Monash University, Australia. Prior to this she was lecturer at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest.

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