Customer Reviews

A Private Disgrace: Lizzie Borden by Daylight (Library of Crime Classics)

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I have read many, many books about the Lizzie Borden case, and this one is the best. Not only is it so well-written that I find it impossible to put down, it gives an indepth history of the case and presents many facts which previously had been ignored. Although I don't necessarily believe Miss Lincoln's solution to the case (her diagnosis of Lizzie's temporal epilepsy is a bit far-fetched), I entirely believe her assertions that Lizzie hid her dress under another dress, that Lizzie wore her father's coat while she killed him, and that Lizzie did go to the barn to break the hatchet handle with the "vice-like thing" and was seen by the ice cream vendor. Miss Lincoln writes with the premise that since she is a woman and from Fall River, she can better understand Lizzie, the woman, than any other writer. She may be right. She has an uncanny ability to take the most innocuous comments made by Lizzie and others and see them for what they really were: clues. This is a good starting place for a Lizzie Borden novice, and a good read for someone who is just curious about the case or just enjoys a good book.

Exceptionally well-written, informative, and highly entertaining, this book rivals "In Cold Blood" as one of the best true crime books I've ever read. I don't necessarily buy all of the theories presented here, but they are among the most plausible ever presented.

I have been interested in Lizzie Borden for 40 years, and have read at least a dozen books on the case. I think this is the best of the lot. If you can find a copy, hard or paper, new or used, you can't go wrong. Read it for entertainment, or for scholarship. Mrs. Lincoln really did this one right.

Victoria Lincoln grew up in the same town (Fall River, MA) in which the infamous Borden murders took place. She knew Lizzie and the old Yankee traditions. Her insights, wit, and HARD work writing this book make it the best crime book I have EVER read, and frankly one of the best books, period

On a stiflingly hot August morning in 1892 Lizzie Borden, of Fall River, Massachusetts, chopped her stepmother to death with an ax. An hour and a half later, she killed her father the same way. Although the story has been told by those least qualified to do so -- outsiders and men. Now, for the first time, this famous American crime is examined by someone with all the proper credentials: Victoria Lincoln is a native of Fall River and thus knows the never-revealed "inside" story of the crime that insular community regarded as its "private disgrace"; she is a woman, and as she convincingly demonstrates, the Borden murders -- and their solution -- can be fully understood only by a fellow woman.

Miss Lincoln comes up with startling new findings in her penetrating analysis of the crime. Among them: the hitherto unknown motive for the killings (a secret no one but an inhabitant of Fall River, Massachusetts, ever could possibly disclose); a startling new hypothesis to account for Lizzie's celebrated "peculiar spells" that casts new light on how the crime was committed; and the place where Lizzie hid the dress she was wearing at the time of the murders -- a mystery that has been plaguing criminologists for years.

A PRIVATE DISGRACE is far more than a superb book of fact crime; it is a distinguished piece of writing. Victoria Lincoln is a seasoned, best-selling novelist who has a special relationship with her subject: as a child, she not only lived up the street from Lizzie Borden, but knew her personally. Step by step, Miss Lincoln unfolds the background of the crime; she evokes the special mores of the Fall River upper crust who lived "up on the hill"; she painstakingly re-creates the inquest where Lizzie nakedly admitted her guilt and then was saved by a fantastic stroke of luck -- because of a technicality, the damning inquest trial. But Miss Lincoln does not end with Lizzie's celebrated aquittal; she takes the story beyond to her latter days when, as Lizbeth of Maplecroft, Lizzie lived perhaps her strangest life of all.

The Borden case is one of the most enduring -- and perplexing -- landmarks in American crime annals. A PRIVATE DISGRACE is bound to be regarded as the classic book on this classic American crime.

This account of the Borden murders by Victoria Lincoln is sometimes based on conjecture and has its errors; also sources are usually not cited. However, it's extremely informative in fact, quite plausible in theory, and probably the most entertaining Lizzie book in the non-fiction category. It won the Best Fact Crime Book award in 1967.

David Rehak
author of "Did Lizzie Borden Axe For It?"

I first read this book about thirty years ago, and I've yet to read one better. Ms. Lincoln's wonderfully descriptive style lends a true "You Are There" atmosphere. She dives right into confronting the most inexplicable components of the case and delivers a satisfying solution. A bravura piece of work.

I think Miss Borden would have been thoroughly disconcerted by "A Private Disgrace". The author got inside her mind. Worse yet, the author saw things Lizzie would never have acknowledged, even to herself. That's probably how she lived with what she had done, by never examining it too closely.

This is the most interesting read out there on Lizzie Borden.

Victoria Lincoln can write- beautifully- and she puts her indelible stamp on this highly entertaining version of the famous murders. She makes you believe she was actually there, and she was, in Fall River, at least, and furthermore she actually knew Lizzie Borden. When Victoria was a child, she occasionally talked with Lizzie who was by then an old lady feeding the birds in her back yard down the street. You get a kind of horse's mouth impression, a New England insider's coveted fly on the wall view. Lincoln is deliciously gossipy, and as a fellow Fall Riverite as well as a woman, Lincoln thinks she has Lizzie pegged, and I believe she does!

Whether or not you believe Lizzie was guilty may color your opinion of this book; but if you think Lizzie was too feminine, too small in stature and thus in strength to hack two people to death this book may change your mind. If it doesn't, nothing will. Ms. Lincoln thinks Lizzie is guilty as hell and she sets out in her entertaining way to prove it.

This 1967 book is a classic- it is just as much as classic as Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood." But Ms. Lincoln does go off the deep end in suggesting Lizzie had temporal epilepsy, as other reviewers have noted. It is very unlikely Lizzie committed the murders when in the trance of a petit mal seizure. There is absolutely no logical basis for coming up with this startling conclusion. Nevertheless, her book is a masterpiece of research and sheer writing skill. Lizzie is extremely scary and like the maid Bridget after the murders, you wouldn't have wanted to stay in the same house with her. This is a level headed cold blooded killer and you'll meet her face to face in this book- and shudder.

Victoria Lincoln won an "Edgar" from the Mystery Writers Association of America for this book in the non-fiction crime category. (The Edgar is a small statuette of Edgar Allen Poe).

Numerous books have been written about Lizzie Borden, both supporting the eventual not guilty verdict, and those speculating that Lizzie did it, but was acquitted.
Author Victoria Lincoln is in the "guilty" category, but, perhaps for the first time, discusses in depth why Lizzie was acquitted, taking into account not only the evidence and testimony, but also the social attitudes of the time. She concludes that a jury of 12 old farmers couldn't conceive that a gently-bred young lady of good family could hack her father and stepmother to death with a hatchet. Of course, in 2010, we don't turn an eyelash at the idea.
Lincoln also talks about the evidence. Now, in the post-CSI days, we know that a modern CSI unit would have emptied those tall slop jars to find the hatchet, in spite of their contents. The police would have sealed off the home as a crime scene, and ransacked Lizzie's closet, unlike the gentlemanly Fall River police officers who didn't want to be crude and actually make a thorough search of it, rather than just a basic, visual inspection.
The inquest testimony is now available online, and I suggest any serious students of the case go back and read it. Had it been admitted as evidence, it is likely Lizzie would have been convicted.
The case for epilepsy? Maybe. It's not out of the realm of possibility. But whether or not she had epilepsy, Lizzie did have murder on her mind, and I have little doubt that modern forensic science and investigation would have made it an open-and-shut case.
In any event, if you can find this book, read it. It is extremely entertaining, readable and carefully examines what I feel are the crucial issues of the case. A must-read for either students of the case, or true crime fans. It's a keeper.