Misjudged Murderesses: Female Injustice in Victorian Britain

by Stephen Jakobi

Lacing tea with poison and slipping arsenic in to soup, this is what comes to mind we talk of murderesses of the Victorian age. Fuelled by a rumour-driven press and cases of notorious killers like Marry Ann Cotton, the 'Angel of Death', or Christiana Edmunds, the 'Chocolate Cream Killer', death by poisoning was a great anxiety of Victorian Britain.

But what about those women who were wrongly convicted? What about the suspects who fell victim of a biased jury and unrelenting press? In _Misjudged Murderesses_, Stephen Jakobi takes a forensic approach to examine the trials of six women falsely sentenced for crimes they didn't commit. With the aid of primary sources, and in two cases the ready assistance of descendants and local journalists, the validity of their convictions is questioned. Highlighting common factors in poisoning cases that led to ostensible miscarriages of justice, Jakobi shines a light on a flawed and inconsistent legal system.

Genres: Nonfiction, True Crime, History, Womens, Crime

224 pages, Paperback

Published October 16, 2019

Reviews

[Maja - BibliophiliaDK ✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

IF THE PURPOSE OF THE BOOK ISN'T CLEAR... THEN THERE'S NO POINT IN READING IT!

DNF at 46%

Okay, so, I feel like I gave this one a fair chance. I kept waiting for the turning point, where I would finally find out, why this book was written and why I needed to read it. But honestly, if that point hasn't come halfway through, it's just not coming. And then I am just not reading it.

WHAT I DISLIKED

Structure: Or, lack thereof. The first 25% of this book jumped from one thing to another without a common thread, keeping it together. Very discombobulated and messy.

Purpose: For non-fiction books there can be two purposes - entertainment or examination/investigation. Honestly, I cannot for the life of me figure out, which purpose this book served!

Wikipedia: Everyone - except for the author of this book - knows, that you do not use Wikipedia as a source!!!

Research?: One thing that really jumped out at me early on was the fact that the author very openly, and almost proudly, states, that he has really not done any research himself. This book is based upon research done by others.

Endnotes: First of all, I prefer footnotes. But, more importantly, I simply just want notes! End, foot, in the end it doesn't matter as long as it is there! This book has almost no notes! In fact for the chapters 14-23 there literally are no notes! WTF?!

Source collection: There is a difference between non-fiction and source collections. You can't have it both ways, in my opinion. I don't read non-fiction to read the sources, I want the authors opinion on the sources and a reference to the sources used so that I can read them myself if I so chose. If you use 4-6 pages for printing an entire source (multiple times!) without hardly any comment just makes me wonder 'why are you even involved in this book when you didn't write most of it?'

ARC provided by the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

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[Lois Lane · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an excellent idea for a book, but I just couldn’t get not it. There were too many secondary sources quoted in full, with very little evidence of original research. It probably didn’t help that I’m reading the fabulous book, The Five, which makes use of Victorian censuses and other sources to much better effect.

[Tammy Buchli · Rating 1 out of 5]

While this seemed like a tremendously promising idea, the execution was poor. The book is basically a series of reprinted newspaper articles strung together with some conclusions and presented without any attention to narrative or flow. I can’t recommend it.

[Kat M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really makes you think, it was well researched and I was never bored when reading it. I think the author does a very good job in doing the research.

[Susan Johnston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Princess Fuzzypants here: Murder by arsenic poisoning seemed to be a popular way to “off” an unwanted spouse or any other tiresome individual. It was so common that the sale of arsenic was monitored closely lest it be used for nefarious purposes. The purveyors of this method of death were largely female and in the case of this book, mostly of a poorer class and often uneducated. In a justice system skewed mightily towards the male of the species, not all those convicted were guilty. In fact, this book makes a convincing arguments that even ones who might truly have committed the act, in a different courtroom, they would have been acquitted or found not proven.
With murders of this sort, the death sentence was the normal conclusion. Sadly for many of the women described in the book, there was no recourse once sentence was passed. In the rare occasion the sentence was commuted but it did not compensate for the miscarriage of justice. There was even the famous case of Florence Maybrick where the judge, clearly suffering from Alzheimer’s, bullied the jury into convicting an innocent woman.
Filled to the brim with testimony from the various trials, it often makes for tough but fascinating reading. No doubt many of the egregious errors would have been challenged in a modern court or at the very least appealed. No such opportunity existed. It make the reader grateful to live in a different era where the scales of justice are not so heavily weighted in favour of the prosecution..
Four purrs and two paws up.

[Randee Green · Rating 1 out of 5]

MISJUDGED MURDERESSES combines two of my favorite things – the Victorian Era and murder. Specifically, murder by arsenic poison. Stephen Jakobi looks at the cases of six Victorian Era women who were convicted of poisoning someone (or multiple people) with arsenic and hypothesizes on whether these women were innocent or guilty. According to the book’s description, Jakobi takes a modern forensic approach with these old cases. Maybe I missed something, but I really didn’t find anything related to modern forensics in the book. Jakobi occasionally gave his opinion on whether or not he thought the woman was guilty or not. But his opinion didn’t really seem to be based on anything forensic. Jakobi mainly relied on reprinting the original newspaper articles and court/prison records from back in the day. These verbatim original writings were hard to read – especially since the incorrect spelling was left as is. Some of them went on for multiple pages without any paragraph breaks. These original writings really didn’t always explain what happened – or what was thought to have happened – and I grasp of the alleged crime. The material was interesting, but the way it was presented fell very flat.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

[Melisende · Rating 2 out of 5]

What should have read as a case study of each of the trials, testimonies of witnesses and forensic evidence, came across as a mish-mash of ideas that chopped and changed with each case study.

What I personally would have preferred and what I feel, as a reader, would have been more engaging, is a study of miscarriages of justice where poison featured, and using the examples of not only the women presented herein but also others to highlight these misnomers and inconsistencies in the court proceedings, whilst providing an analysis of guilt or innocence.

I just felt that whilst the premise was intriguing - it was just the execution that was lacking and detracted from what should have made for a highly readable history and study of the court system as it was applied in these examples. I just felt the book could have been set out and formatted a little better, and the cases as presented used to support the author's stance.

[Amy McElroy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stephen Jakobi examines 8 cases of women sentenced to death in the Victorian era.
I absolutely loved the idea of this book. Thought it would delve in to forensics and new evidence to determine who was guilty and who wasn't. Instead I read articles reprinted and more articles, witness statements then the opinion of the author on whether he thought they were guilty or not. I persisted but this just didn't hold my attention. The first couple of chapters were very difficult to read as they didn't flow very well and kept jumping from the different sources. I thought once the book got in to the specific cases it would improve and it did slightly but the majority of the information was sources recited rather than opinions or references. A little let down by this after such high hopes.

[S · Rating 2 out of 5]

'Misjudged Murderesses' by Stephen Jakobi examines eight cases of wilful murder by poisoning by working class women.

The premise of the book looked very interesting and the historical aspect all drew my attention to this book ,but what could have been a enjoyable read turned out be a difficult read. The lay out had no structure and I was very confused by what the author was trying to relay to the reader the book was full of long extracts from trial reports and press coverage reports which I think unnecessary who's sole purpose seems only been to fill out the pages. The book quotes Jakobi's as taking a forensic approach to these cases but I found no evidence for this I unless missed something.

There will be some people who will enjoy this book but I'm sadly not one them.

[Laura · Rating 1 out of 5]

This may sadly be the fastest I have DNFed a book. This is so poorly put together that I thought there had to be formatting issues until I read enough of it to realise that it's just the style. There is no attempt to make this readable-it honestly reads like a list of examples with no attempt to string them together or do anything but post extracts from other works/newpapers etc. I expect my nonfiction books to at least have the structure of a basic essay (introduction to the topic, why it matters, why you're giving these examples instead of just listing them). Maybe strictly as a reference book it would be useful but this is not for a non-academic reader.

[Anett Kovacs · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the idea of this book - misogyny in the Victorian legal system on the example of wrongly convicted women. I didn't expect that the book would be a collection of case files consisting of witness statements and newspaper articles as direct quotes and it was at times difficult to understand. I would've liked to hear the author's voice more often, the book fell a bit flat for me like this.

[Hazel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Misjudged Murderesses by Stephen Jakobi was a difficult book to read. I found the idea great but sadly I felt the book was hard to follow and disjointed in the articles in it.

I struggled though but its not a book I would go back to.

Thanks to Netgalley and Pen and Sword for the ARC of this book.

[Rebecca Batley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book lacked a convergent narrative and purpose I’m afraid. It had snippets of fascinating information such as it’s insights into the Victorian male dominated legal system but there was no coherence to the cases or the arguments.
I am sorry to say I DNF this.

[BeverleysReads · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very well researched and presented book. The writing is informative and the topic well discussed.. I’d recommend this book to anyone with an interest in Victorian crime and/or the history of law.

[Matthew Harwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting collection of articles about injustice in Victorian England. The content is interesting but the book is written as just a collection of transcripts from newspapers and trial write ups and there is very limited original content.

[Ileana Renfroe · Rating 2 out of 5]

The cover was very intriguing and caught my eye. The novel itself though was a bit difficult to follow. It just lost me in the first chapter. I think the potential is there for an amazing novel.

[Heather Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting cases and make dominating Victorian culture. I found the premise of the book very interesting and the historical aspect fascinating. Just fell flat in spots.

[Rosemarie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full review on my blog but a summary:

No narrative drive. Quotation of sources but limited commentary. It could have been done better.

[Catherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry but I couldn’t finish this book. Normally I would persevere but I gave up. I’m sure this would be very good if it was someone’s thesis but as a book No. Very choppy. Mainly a list of excerpts from old documents and newspapers.
Unfortunately unable to recommend this one.

[Daisy Bee · Rating 3 out of 5]

In Misjudged Murderesses, Jakobi examines eight cases in Victorian England. All eight involved accusations of wilful murder by poisoning by working class women. This book was a fascinating account of the legal system with its middle-class, male bias. In all cases, there was a lack of evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the women accused were guilty, but with biased press reporting and lack of access to adequate legal representation, they were all found guilty by juries. Even more alarming was that at this time defendants in criminal cases were not allowed to give evidence in their own defence. Furthermore there was no right to appeal from the trial verdict. For anyone interested in true crime and history this is a compelling read, extensively researched and incredibly detailed.