A Poisoned Life: Florence Chandler Maybrick, the First American Woman Sentenced to Death in England

by Richard Jay Hutto

Florence Maybrick was the first American woman to be sentenced to death in England--for murdering her husband, a crime she almost certainly did not commit. Her 1889 trial was presided over by an openly misogynist judge who was later declared incompetent and died in an asylum. Hours before Maybrick was to be hanged, Queen Victoria reluctantly commuted her sentence to life in prison--in her opinion a woman who would commit adultery, as Maybrick had admitted, would also kill her husband. Her children were taken from her; she never saw them again. Her mother worked for years to clear her name, enlisting the president of the United States and successive ambassadors, including Robert Todd Lincoln. Decades later, a gruesome diary was discovered that made Maybrick's husband a prime Jack the Ripper suspect.

Genres: Nonfiction, Audiobook

196 pages, Paperback

Published May 22, 2018

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have mixed feelings on this one. It’s certainly well-researched and competently written, but the first third of the book (at least) is just an info dump of the family histories of anyone even tangentially related to the case—and not even the case, really, but Florence Maybrick’s mother. While there are interesting aspects to her mother’s early life and the various people connected to it, I feel like most of that could’ve been condensed down to a chapter or so.

The information about the events leading up to the death of James Maybrick and the subsequent fallout was absorbing, and I agree with the author’s conclusion that Florence was probably not to blame. Guilty or not, her trial was certainly a miscarriage of justice, and it was sad to see how her life devolved after her release.

Overall, I probably wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone looking for an easy-reading true crime narrative nonfiction book. I’d say it’s more suited to scholars of the case and anyone looking for detailed family connections. But it’s certainly worth at least a skim for the section devoted to the alleged crime—and also the surprising final chapter with an unexpected Jack the Ripper appearance!

I was not familiar with James Maybrick as a suspect for Jack the Ripper, but the evidence presented in this book seems compelling, and I plan to investigate further!

[Daniel Farabaugh · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book. It was a bit slow as it gave the family history in the beginning. It pikced up nicely when it got to the actual trial. The author does a very good job with the events of the trial.

[Porter Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of ‘The Gilded Age’ will love it. Incredible story and it’s all true. Very well written (and researched).

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

—191–

Largely a genealogy of every single antebellum American. Skip the first third of the book.

The trial and post trial efforts on behalf of Florence might have been a pretty tight Smithsonian article.

The Jack the Ripper epilogue is a bit unsatisfactory.