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Women Who Kill: A History of Britain's Most Dangerous Women
Innocent, guilty, coerced, framed.
These are the stories of dozens of women who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Whether innocent or not, these women were all indicted for murder of some sort; most of them ended up facing execution. From Britain’s late medieval period through the following 600 years, this book explores the world of murderous female crime and pulls you in to the lives of these women. It situates their stories on the timeline of British crime and relates their terrible deeds to the criminal world and proceedings of the times they lived in.
Enjoy this glimpse into the history of Britain’s criminal underbelly and the women within it, who showed what desperation, lack of mental health support, and cruelty, could lead to.
These are the stories of dozens of women who found themselves on the wrong side of the law. Whether innocent or not, these women were all indicted for murder of some sort; most of them ended up facing execution. From Britain’s late medieval period through the following 600 years, this book explores the world of murderous female crime and pulls you in to the lives of these women. It situates their stories on the timeline of British crime and relates their terrible deeds to the criminal world and proceedings of the times they lived in.
Enjoy this glimpse into the history of Britain’s criminal underbelly and the women within it, who showed what desperation, lack of mental health support, and cruelty, could lead to.
- GenresNonfiction
224 pages, Hardcover
Published October 16, 2024
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26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
August 25, 2024
Women may be less likely to commit murder, statistically speaking, but that does not mean there haven't been plenty of female murderers through the centuries, and their stories show how different their experience has been compared to male murderers.
This is a short, informative book about female murderers in Great Britain in the last six hundred or so years. I appreciated how Fetterly selected the cases she covered as representative of how the law dealt with female murderers over the centuries, and how we got to see how that evolved over time.
Alongside these case studies, Fetterly also discusses how criminal justice in the different areas of Great Britain changed to slowly become more standardized, and how the regional differences in law on the way there affected how female murderers were pursued and punished.
However, I did find the writing dry and somewhat repetitive on occasion, the tone more like an academic essay than a book. While I enjoyed learning more about the topic my progress was rather slow at times.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
This is a short, informative book about female murderers in Great Britain in the last six hundred or so years. I appreciated how Fetterly selected the cases she covered as representative of how the law dealt with female murderers over the centuries, and how we got to see how that evolved over time.
Alongside these case studies, Fetterly also discusses how criminal justice in the different areas of Great Britain changed to slowly become more standardized, and how the regional differences in law on the way there affected how female murderers were pursued and punished.
However, I did find the writing dry and somewhat repetitive on occasion, the tone more like an academic essay than a book. While I enjoyed learning more about the topic my progress was rather slow at times.
Disclaimer: I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley. This is my honest and voluntary review.
September 30, 2024
I never read true crime before. Somehow never found one that sounds interesting enough. This book is about how attitudes towards female killers shifted from 16 century to 20 century in the United Kingdom. It also examines the stories of the most notorious murderesses at the time. (And there's plenty of juicy stuff in there). Now I'll mention some of my favorite facts from the book (sorry I have no idea how to structure the review).
Apparently in 16 century if an accused woman was proven to be pregnant they execute her after she's given birth. (The book doesn't mention what happens to the baby in cases where no father is present). I sincerely doubt anything good comes of it. In later centuries the judges (men) finally realized that executing mother of 4 for killing a newborn because she has no money to feed it isn't gonna help anyone. Better late than never.
In 1625 in the UK there was passed an act to prevent murder of bastard children which meant that a woman has to prove the baby was born dead. (At least 1 eyewitness that says she prepared for the baby by say buying child bed). Walter Scott wrote a novel about woman being imprisoned for infanticide. She claims the midwife killed the baby (or lead to its death in any case), midwife claims the mother killed the baby.
Also they had murder pamflets that cost 1 cent with scandalous stories. Which is how many of this stories came to be known.
Baby farming in Victorian England was a practice when a baby was given to a nurse in exchange for a small fee. Fee was not enough to feed and clothe the child so many farmers killed them.
Thank you Netgalley and Pen and Sword history for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Apparently in 16 century if an accused woman was proven to be pregnant they execute her after she's given birth. (The book doesn't mention what happens to the baby in cases where no father is present). I sincerely doubt anything good comes of it. In later centuries the judges (men) finally realized that executing mother of 4 for killing a newborn because she has no money to feed it isn't gonna help anyone. Better late than never.
In 1625 in the UK there was passed an act to prevent murder of bastard children which meant that a woman has to prove the baby was born dead. (At least 1 eyewitness that says she prepared for the baby by say buying child bed). Walter Scott wrote a novel about woman being imprisoned for infanticide. She claims the midwife killed the baby (or lead to its death in any case), midwife claims the mother killed the baby.
Also they had murder pamflets that cost 1 cent with scandalous stories. Which is how many of this stories came to be known.
Baby farming in Victorian England was a practice when a baby was given to a nurse in exchange for a small fee. Fee was not enough to feed and clothe the child so many farmers killed them.
Thank you Netgalley and Pen and Sword history for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
November 1, 2024
This was a really interesting and intriguing read! It's well researched and informative. This book details woman murderers throughout history in Britain. If you enjoy true crime, I would recommend this! Special Thank You to Erin Fetterly,Pen & Sword and NetGalley for allowing me to read a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.
September 14, 2025
Fetterly explores court records and other documents relating to women who have been accused of murder from the 14th century up to the mid 20th. Each chapter looks at the general violence in society during that time period and the attitudes towards women who kill before expanding with a few case studies. A fascinating look at women's history in relation to crime, society and gender roles.
January 29, 2026
Thank you Netgalley for the advance reader copy of Women Who Kill by Erin Fetterly in exchange for an honest review. This was an interesting book with interviews with women who have killed. I have been on a true crime binge lately and this book fit the mark. I would recommend it to other true crime readers.
October 12, 2024
Female criminals were considered moral deviants who challenged their expected gender role through their transgressions. Women were deemed to be more passive, but they were not thought to be prone to criminality, so the crimes they did commit were either ignored or seen as unusual. Therefore, with some exceptions, female crime was thought to be less threatening.Female murderers were an especially complex category, depending on the nature of the murder. In cases of infanticide, courts were often reluctant to convict mothers and witnesses tried to demonstrate that the women had displayed some maternal feelings before the child’s birth, to prove that they never intended to kill their babies. On the other hand, wives who murdered their husbands or masters were seen as particularly evil, since their actions undermined patriarchal rule; the crime was a form of petty treason.Since they spent more time in the private sphere, they were more likely to be accused of crimes which took place there, such as offences surrounding childbirth, which primarily took place in the home.Of course, women were never confined to the home, and they did have opportunities to commit offences in the public sphere, often connected to their occupations and the types of leisure activities they engaged in.Theft is the one major category of offences where women accounted for a significant proportion of defendants.New immigrants to the metropolis were often cut off from support networks.Moreover, women’s wages were typically significantly lower than men’s, and their jobs were less secure.All court personnel were men.The only women present in the courtroom were witnesses or spectators in the gallery, unless a jury of matrons was needed to determine if a convicted woman was pregnant. As a result, appearing as a defendant would have been intimidating for women.Some juries treated female witnesses more sceptically than men, and female testimony was more likely to be omitted from the Proceedings.In 1623 women found guilty of the theft of goods less than 10 shillings in value were allowed benefit of clergy, and in 1691 women were granted the privilege on the same terms as men.
August 21, 2024
As much as there’s a lot of discourse and ethical implications to it, it’s impossible to deny there is a strange curiosity in most of us about killers - what drives them, how does someone reach that point, and are they evil, or just a person pushed too far?
This book explores Britain’s history of women accused of murder, whether they’re guilty or not, and tries to find that tipping point from a woman scorned to a cold-blooded killer. Not only does this book take us back in time to learn about different crimes, punishments and women from our past, but also offers a chance to reflect on how the attitudes and treatments of women may have shaped brutal crimes.
Starting back in the 1300’s and exploring the broken legal systems, uninformed medical practices, religious zealotry, inhumane punishments and lack of human rights all the way until recent history, the removal of the death penalty, women being allowed bank accounts - a very different kind of world depending where you look.
This was fairly quick and easy to read, with an informative tone but without the stuffiness and over-formality that makes it feel like a textbook instead of a non-fiction. Each time period starts with a background of the laws, culture and themes of the time offering a window into attitudes and beliefs, then moving into introducing a few of the accused. Especially for the older entries, I know there may be a lack of information about the women themselves but I did wish we spent more time learning about their stories as the women themselves featured a bit less than I expected with how this book is presented.
At times I found the constant use of conjunctions in places a little jarring, and the subject would meander and loop back round at times in ways that didn’t quite flow, feeling like some kind of sectioning or separation was needed - but content was still very interesting, clearly well-researched and well worth the read.
This book explores Britain’s history of women accused of murder, whether they’re guilty or not, and tries to find that tipping point from a woman scorned to a cold-blooded killer. Not only does this book take us back in time to learn about different crimes, punishments and women from our past, but also offers a chance to reflect on how the attitudes and treatments of women may have shaped brutal crimes.
Starting back in the 1300’s and exploring the broken legal systems, uninformed medical practices, religious zealotry, inhumane punishments and lack of human rights all the way until recent history, the removal of the death penalty, women being allowed bank accounts - a very different kind of world depending where you look.
This was fairly quick and easy to read, with an informative tone but without the stuffiness and over-formality that makes it feel like a textbook instead of a non-fiction. Each time period starts with a background of the laws, culture and themes of the time offering a window into attitudes and beliefs, then moving into introducing a few of the accused. Especially for the older entries, I know there may be a lack of information about the women themselves but I did wish we spent more time learning about their stories as the women themselves featured a bit less than I expected with how this book is presented.
At times I found the constant use of conjunctions in places a little jarring, and the subject would meander and loop back round at times in ways that didn’t quite flow, feeling like some kind of sectioning or separation was needed - but content was still very interesting, clearly well-researched and well worth the read.
August 26, 2024
Women Who Kill, Britain’s most dangerous women by Erin Fetterly, The book covers the mid evil era with a few cases from before peppered in the book to the Victorian era all the way to 1955 with the last woman executed in Scotland iPhone the author did a great job trying to tell the social aspect as well as popular beliefs media coverage ET see as well as the psychology of the perpetrators. I did think she gave a lot of these females benefit of the doubt and felt bad for them which I was OK with until the murder of the 13 year old newspaper boy Who got her eight-year-old daughter to sit on top of corpse in a wagon so as not to give up the goose, that her mom just murdered someone’s child. Despite the minor flaw in the book it is not enough to say it ruined it because this really is a great plethora of females in True Crime. There was a lot in this book that I didn’t know even though I am a big fan and a voracious reader of historical crimes especially women. For example I didn’t know in medieval times women had just as many violent crimes as men were treated equally in the court especially I think in Wales? Read the book then you know for certain but this is a great book and when I definitely recommend. I don’t like getting a book and realizing it is current paste that is definitely not what happen with this book the author you can tell throughout the narrative wrote the stories in her own way in the book was so much better for it. #NetGalley, #PenAndSwordPress, #ErinFetterly, #WomenWhoKill, #HistoricalTrueCrime,
October 19, 2024
This is an interesting and different book on killers. Obviously, the book is about women who killed through history but it is also a testament to the status of women in a man’s world and how they have been perceived often determined the “justice” they were meted. Some women were irretrievably evil. It is not just a male prerogative but so often the stories that are told in the book are more from desperation than anything else.
The most frequent being the killing of a baby or other child or a husband. With the killing of a baby, the murders were often the result of what we know recognize as post-partum malaises. If not that, frequently it would be the realization that resources, already strained, could not be stretched to include one more mouth. In these women, there was no malice.
Many of the stories will elicit sympathy from the reader. Certainly the fates of women who were seduced and abandoned to their own devices and felt they had no choice but to get rid of a baby. Men looked at women as disposable items to be used and abused at their will. Any woman who reads this and is not thankful to live in modern times does not understand what it must have been like. There were many examples of women who were beaten to the point where self defence finally took over. The law up until fairly recent times made no exemption for those women. They were treated the same as someone who simply wanted to be rid of millstone.
It is a fascinating look at how times have changed. We should be glad. Four purrs and two paws.
The most frequent being the killing of a baby or other child or a husband. With the killing of a baby, the murders were often the result of what we know recognize as post-partum malaises. If not that, frequently it would be the realization that resources, already strained, could not be stretched to include one more mouth. In these women, there was no malice.
Many of the stories will elicit sympathy from the reader. Certainly the fates of women who were seduced and abandoned to their own devices and felt they had no choice but to get rid of a baby. Men looked at women as disposable items to be used and abused at their will. Any woman who reads this and is not thankful to live in modern times does not understand what it must have been like. There were many examples of women who were beaten to the point where self defence finally took over. The law up until fairly recent times made no exemption for those women. They were treated the same as someone who simply wanted to be rid of millstone.
It is a fascinating look at how times have changed. We should be glad. Four purrs and two paws.
August 25, 2024
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for sending me an ARC in exchange for an honest review.
Everybody knows that super basic soccer moms love a good true crime story. But I wouldn't really say that's what this book is. It is, however, a meticulously researched academic look at how women were treated in the court systems of Britain across time.
The writing is a bit dry, there are significant gaps in the information available as to motives in some cases, and the reflection and analysis gets a bit repetitive as time marches forward. I think the phrase "this reflects society's changing attitude toward..." is in every chapter.
On the other hand, I did learn some fantastic information that is new to me. For instance, the crime of petty treason (a servant killing their master or a wife killing her husband) that came with the punishment of being BURNED AT THE STAKE would mean a wife would have to be desperate af to follow through with murderous intentions. This is true of some of the women we see, but we also see women willing to murder husbands because they prefer their lover's company. Which is just... I don't even know. Maybe a lack of opportunities to live their lives on their own terms made women a bit devil-may-care.
These women have essentially been buried with the passage of time. Their exploits may have been preserved in broadsides, but circumstances, motives, and legacies are often lost. Was it worth it?
Everybody knows that super basic soccer moms love a good true crime story. But I wouldn't really say that's what this book is. It is, however, a meticulously researched academic look at how women were treated in the court systems of Britain across time.
The writing is a bit dry, there are significant gaps in the information available as to motives in some cases, and the reflection and analysis gets a bit repetitive as time marches forward. I think the phrase "this reflects society's changing attitude toward..." is in every chapter.
On the other hand, I did learn some fantastic information that is new to me. For instance, the crime of petty treason (a servant killing their master or a wife killing her husband) that came with the punishment of being BURNED AT THE STAKE would mean a wife would have to be desperate af to follow through with murderous intentions. This is true of some of the women we see, but we also see women willing to murder husbands because they prefer their lover's company. Which is just... I don't even know. Maybe a lack of opportunities to live their lives on their own terms made women a bit devil-may-care.
These women have essentially been buried with the passage of time. Their exploits may have been preserved in broadsides, but circumstances, motives, and legacies are often lost. Was it worth it?
December 21, 2024
Women Who Kill - A History of Britain's Most Dangerous Women by Erin Fetterly is a fascinating exploration of the evolution of the murderer, specifically, how soceity moulded a different type of killer through its cultural norms
Instead of just reviewing individual cases and telling the story about the murder, this book delves deeper, exploring the "why it happened" in addition to "what happened" and this makes for exceptionally compelling reading
An outstanding book for lovers of true crime and thrillers and especially poignant for lovers of history, social history and students of criminology and forensic psychology.
Thank you to NetGalley, Pen & Sword | Pen & Sword History and the incredible Erin Fetterly for this outstanding ARC
September 27, 2024
The book covers a large span of British history that’s covers England, Wales and Scotland in equal measure. Erin’s research in bringing alive the women’s stories from the medieval to 1960s is to be admired. There are plenty of cases here that I had never heard of before and found it fascinating to read about baby farming. I found the changes to legislation and how this impacted on how crime was punished at the time interesting. I felt this book is a good overview and will encourage me to read more about crime and see if I can find more information on these women’s stories. It continues to show that murder is something that is as shocking and hypnotic to us as it was to people in the 1300s.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 10, 2024
‘Throughout British history, it has been assumed that women are far less likely, and less capable, than men to commit felonies of all types, especially murder.’
A must read for true crime readers!
Featuring stories of women who have committed murder in the past 700 years.
Some might find this to be a difficult read due to distressing talks on infanticide.
‘Women who committed crimes while embodying in feminine, or masculine qualities faced harsher treatment, being considered more unnatural or inhuman than those who adhered to feminine expectations.’
A must read for true crime readers!
Featuring stories of women who have committed murder in the past 700 years.
Some might find this to be a difficult read due to distressing talks on infanticide.
‘Women who committed crimes while embodying in feminine, or masculine qualities faced harsher treatment, being considered more unnatural or inhuman than those who adhered to feminine expectations.’
September 7, 2024
Interesting and entertaining- although that may be too cheerful a word, considering the subject matter. I liked that the author mostly kept the focus on ‘everyday’ murderers rather than notorious ones. A little dry in parts, but very readable.
March 19, 2025
Unfortunately for me, this read like a repetitive, padded-out advanced high school or early college research paper. I was really hoping for more.
October 19, 2024
Women who Kill was a fascinating look at murder committed by women in Great Britain over the centuries, and how the times and customs of each period played into each case.
Erin Fetterly documents each case in an interesting fashion, starting by explaining how the role of women in society affected the cases, before covering real life criminal cases for these woman.
I highly recommend this novel for history fans, fans of women’s history as well as crime buffs. This was a compelling and engaging read and is worth the time to take a chance!
I would like to thank Netgalley and Pen & Sword for the advance reader copy.
Erin Fetterly documents each case in an interesting fashion, starting by explaining how the role of women in society affected the cases, before covering real life criminal cases for these woman.
I highly recommend this novel for history fans, fans of women’s history as well as crime buffs. This was a compelling and engaging read and is worth the time to take a chance!
I would like to thank Netgalley and Pen & Sword for the advance reader copy.
December 17, 2024
Thoroughly-researched Women Who Kill by Erin Fetterly focuses on female murderers in Wales, England and Scotland over the past 700 years, the criminal (in)justice system, executions and mental health. Women were long considered to be lacking in intelligence, courage and the capacity to kill but there are many examples of manslaughter and murder throughout the centuries. As women were usually at home, their weapons of choice were implements at hand. Women were often burned for their crimes but men seldom were. To delay death, sometimes women pleaded pregnancy, whether they were pregnant or not.
Not only are the cases interesting but so is learning about the evolution of mental health pertaining to murder and punishment. The women faced their fates (usually execution) in various ways which are outlined here. The last women executions in each of the three countries are described as are murder pamphlets, enlightenment, insanity and living conditions faced which are vastly different from now.
Do know the graphic descriptions can be difficult and jarring to read, especially details about infanticide. I like that it is written sensitively and thoughtfully.
My sincere thank you to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this incredibly compelling book.
Not only are the cases interesting but so is learning about the evolution of mental health pertaining to murder and punishment. The women faced their fates (usually execution) in various ways which are outlined here. The last women executions in each of the three countries are described as are murder pamphlets, enlightenment, insanity and living conditions faced which are vastly different from now.
Do know the graphic descriptions can be difficult and jarring to read, especially details about infanticide. I like that it is written sensitively and thoughtfully.
My sincere thank you to Pen & Sword and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this incredibly compelling book.
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews