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263 C R I T I C A L B I B L I O G R A P H Y General Sources In recent years historians have begun to pay more attention to murder cases as a legitimate focus of scholarly inquiry. In Murder Most Foul: The Killer and the American Gothic Imagination (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), cultural historian Karen Halttunen analyzes popular fascination with murder narratives from the colonial era through the nineteenth century. Similar themes, though focused more specifically on gender, are explored by Patricia Cline Cohen in The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998) and Amy Gilman Srebnick in The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers: Sex and Culture in Nineteenth-Century New York (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995). Robert Harriman ’s Popular Trials: Rhetoric, Mass Media, and the Law (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1990) helps explain why sensational trials resonate with the public. Sources on the Borden Case The Fall River Historical Society (FRHS), located in a beautifully preserved mansion on Rock Street near downtown Fall River, Massachusetts, houses primary sources on the Borden murder. Researchers can access police reports on the murder and subsequent investigation; a transcript of the preliminary hearing; a complete trial transcript; and myriad newspaper accounts. Edwin H. Porter’s classic account, The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders (Portland, Maine: King Philip Publishing Co., 1985), originally published in 1893, is also available at the FRHS. Curator Michael Martins and archivist Jamelle Lyons can also make available to researchers other helpful sources, including city directories and some excellent local histories and document collections on Fall River life during the late Victorian era. The FRHS also has published several volumes pertaining to the crime. Particularly useful is The Commonwealth of Massachusetts vs. Lizzie A. Borden: The 264 CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY Knowlton Papers, 1892–1893, edited by Michael Martins and Dennis A. Binette (Fall River : Fall River Historical Society, 1994). This rich collection of documents, letters, and evidentiary reports came from the files of prosecuting attorney Hosea Morrill Knowlton. The book contains an excellent biographical glossary of all the major figures in the Borden case. Soon to be published by the FRHS is a volume of the papers of Lizzie Borden’s first attorney, Andrew J. Jennings, of Fall River. A useful guide to an abundant secondary literature is Robert A. Flynn, The Borden Murders: An Annotated Bibliography (Portland, Maine: King Philip Publishing Co., 1992). The book surveys nonfiction, fiction, reference, and miscellaneous works, including poetry, music, and artistic renditions of the Borden saga. A classic account is Edward Pearson’s The Trial of Lizzie Borden (New York: Doubleday , 1937; Notable Trials Library Edition, with a foreword by Alan Dershowitz, 1991). Fascinated with the case for years, Pearson wrote numerous articles on the Borden murders. Pearson writes with percipience and occasional humor, but above all, like Edwin Porter, with a clear-eyed focus on the incriminating evidence against Lizzie Borden. Another excellent study is Robert Sullivan’s Goodbye Lizzie Borden (Brattleboro, Vt.: The Stephen Greene Press, 1974). Sullivan, himself a former Massachusetts Superior Court judge, offers exhaustive research, insight into Massachusetts law, and keen evaluations of the performance of the attorneys and judges in the case. Sullivan’s arguments echo the conclusions of a brilliant early legal scholar, John H. Wigmore, who dissected the evidence immediately after the Borden trial. A law professor at Northwestern University, Wigmore was long recognized as one of the nation’s preeminent experts on evidence. His “The Borden case,” published in the American Law Review 27, no. 6 (Nov.–Dec. 1893): 819–45, is still well worth reading. By far the best combination of legal and cultural analysis is Cara W. Robertson’s “Representing ‘Miss Lizzie’: Cultural Convictions in the Trial of Lizzie Borden,” Yale Journal of Law and the Humanities 8 (summer 1996):351–416. This perceptive account argues convincingly that because of the gendered depiction of “Miss Lizzie” that prevailed in the Fall River courtroom, securing her conviction became “a cultural impossibility .” Another useful source is Lizzie Borden: A Case Book of Family and Crime in the 1890s, edited by Joyce G. Williams, J. Eric Smithburn, and M. Jeanne Peterson (Bloomington, Ind.: T.I.S. Publications Division, 1980). This study focuses on the social milieu of Victorian America, contains a copy of the inquest transcript (as do the Pearson and Sullivan books), and...

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