Review: Hartman, Victorian Murderesses

[truepenny]

Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen Respectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes by Mary S. Hartman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a good and interesting book, but it's definitely far more Women's Studies than it is True Crime. Hartman pairs 6 sets of French and English women who were tried for murder in the 19th century, and analyzes their crimes in terms of women's rights and expectations around marriage. (I say "around" rather than "in" because 2 of the women, Constance Kent and Celestine Doudet, were unmarried.) She's interested, as she says, in using these causes celebres to illuminate the lives of ordinary bourgeois women, rather than having any particular interest in the crimes themselves.

So her interpretations and analyses of the women's crimes are about as you'd expect, heavy on the abstract and light on the forensic follow-through. I mean, it's not her fault that Kate Summerscale came along and wrote The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, but it's still true that that book makes Hartman's analysis of the murder of Francis Savile Kent look particularly shoddy. Given my own interests, I found the book a little disappointing, but it did introduce me to a number of French murderesses whom I had not known about.



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Comments

[heresluck]

Given my own interests, I found the book a little disappointing, but it did introduce me to a number of French murderesses whom I had not known about.

I think this may be one of the most purely YOU sentences that you have EVER WRITTEN.

[truepenny]

#onbrand