Customer Reviews

Victorian Murderesses: A True History of Thirteen Respectable French and English Women Accused of Unspeakable Crimes

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I picked up this book in a used book store because I had heard of one of the "murderesses", a woman called Constance Kent, from a film "Dead of Night." That's why I started the book...

Little did I know that the book would be one of the most amazing things I've ever read! Highly detailed, immensely educational, and fascinating to read. Ms Hartman must've used a time machine to travel back to this period of history... I felt like I was there. I felt like I got to know not only the women the book profiles, but also the clothes, the homes, the legal system, the newspapers, everything! Ms Hartman made things that happened long ago seem very current and pertinent to today.

To meet these women, some of them horrible, some of them just striving to get by in a very difficult world, was life changing for me. I honestly don't think I've ever read a book that affected me so.

Read this book. Read this book! Women will marvel at how far we've come. Men will find it interesting, too, to see how different and difficult life was for both sexes 'back then.'

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Many thanks, Ms Hartman, for your hard work and dedication.

I bought this book years ago and still reread it. Ms. Hartman has not only told the fascinating stories of these ladies. She has given us a glimpse into the Victorian world in England and France. Her research into women's roles is amazing. There are details of marriage, daily life, and how women coped with their restrictions. If the Victorian way of life interests you, this will be a book you will enjoy over and over.

This is a wonderful read! History abounds! Thank you, Mary S. Hartman, for bringing the much-ballyhooed Victorian Age to light.

I was excited to read this book.. until I actually read this book. It's not bad. It's very well researched and detailed, just horribly written. The author is clearly very intelligent, but her narrative voice is a complicated mess. She jumps all over the place and doubles back on herself, using the device of comparing two women/similar cases per chapter, without focusing enough on each to establish a basis for comparison. I constantly lost track of which woman she was talking about, because she barely spent enough time on either before jumping to the next. The facts were often strung together in rambling bits that corresponded to points in the crime's background, but again, jumped all over the place and failed to establish enough of a foundation for each woman for the reader to relate to.

There is some really excellent information in this book that is often glossed over in other retellings of these crimes, and also detailed accounts of some crimes that are otherwise hard to come by. That said, this book is pretty much only useful as source material, providing enough dates/names/facts to instill the reader to do their own research or seek out another book which has a more linear retelling of the case.

I was also annoyed that there were almost no photos-- there was a singular photo at the beginning of each chapter of one of the women referred to. But not the other. ??? If you are comparing two cases, show some pics of who they were, newspapers with headlines covering the case, pics of the towns where they lived or their husbands, ANYTHING.