The Murder of Helen Jewett Book PDF, ePub eBook

Join our eBook service for unlimited books & audiobooks. Get a free 7 day subscription! ↓↓↓↓↓


Book Descriptions:
In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett.

From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City's elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness.

But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America's burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society's seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators.

With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared from view. Through the Erie Canal, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and by way of New Orleans, he reached the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder. Her stunning portrayals of Helen Jewett, Robinson, and their raffish, colorful nineteenth-century world make vivid a frenetic city life and sexual morality whose complexities, contradictions, and concerns resonate with those of our own time.


From the Hardcover edition.

The Murder of Helen Jewett by Patricia Cline Cohen

From reader reviews:

Susan Velez:

Do you have favorite book? If you have, what is your favorite's book? Publication is very important thing for us to know everything in the world. Each book has different aim as well as goal; it means that e-book has different type. Some people truly feel enjoy to spend their the perfect time to read a book. They can be reading whatever they take because their hobby is reading a book. Why not the person who don't like examining a book? Sometime, person feel need book if they found difficult problem as well as exercise. Well, probably you'll have this The Murder of Helen Jewett.

Sharon Bedgood:

As people who live in often the modest era should be up-date about what going on or details even knowledge to make these individuals keep up with the era and that is always change and move forward. Some of you maybe will update themselves by examining books. It is a good choice for yourself but the problems coming to an individual is you don't know what kind you should start with. This The Murder of Helen Jewett is our recommendation to cause you to keep up with the world. Why, since this book serves what you want and wish in this era.

Valerie Orbison:

Are you kind of stressful person, only have 10 as well as 15 minute in your morning to upgrading your mind ability or thinking skill actually analytical thinking? Then you are experiencing problem with the book in comparison with can satisfy your short space of time to read it because this all time you only find reserve that need more time to be examine. The Murder of Helen Jewett can be your answer as it can be read by anyone who have those short spare time problems.

Justin Oliver:

As a college student exactly feel bored to help reading. If their teacher expected them to go to the library in order to make summary for some guide, they are complained. Just very little students that has reading's soul or real their passion. They just do what the professor want, like asked to the library. They go to at this time there but nothing reading really. Any students feel that studying is not important, boring and can't see colorful pics on there. Yeah, it is to get complicated. Book is very important for you. As we know that on this age, many ways to get whatever we really wish for. Likewise word says, ways to reach Chinese's country. Therefore , this The Murder of Helen Jewett can make you really feel more interested to read.