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.

NOW A NETFLIX DOCUMENTARY From Jeff Benedict, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Tiger Woods and The Dynasty, Poisoned chronicles the events surrounding the worst food-poisoning epidemic in US history: the deadly Jack in the Box E. coli infections in 1993. On December 24, 1992, six-year-old Lauren Rudolph was hospitalized with excruciating stomach pain. Less than a week later she was dead. Doctors were baffled: How could a healthy child become so sick so quickly? After a frenzied investigation, public-health officials announced that the cause was E. coli O157:H7, and the source was hamburger meat served at a Jack in the Box restaurant. During this unprecedented crisis, four children died and over seven hundred others became gravely ill. In Poisoned, award-winning investigative journalist and #1 New York Times bestselling author Jeff Benedict delivers a jarringly candid narrative of the fast-moving disaster, drawing on access to confidential documents and exclusive interviews with the real-life characters at the center of the drama—the families whose children were infected, the Jack in the Box executives forced to answer for the tragedy, the physicians and scientists who identified E. coli as the culprit, and the legal teams on both sides of the historic lawsuits that ensued. Fast Food Nation meets A Civil Action in this riveting account of how we learned the hard way to truly watch what we eat.

This is the story of Margarida de Portu, a medieval French woman accused of poisoning her husband to death. Through the depositions and accusations made in court, the reader learns not only about Margarida herself, but also about medieval women, female agency, kin networks, solidarity, sex, sickness, medicine, and law. Unlike most histories, this compelling book does not remove the author from the analysis. Rather, it lays bare the working method of the historian, helping the reader learn how historians "do" history and discover the rewards and pitfalls of working with primary sources. The book opens with a chapter on microhistory as a genre, explaining its strengths, weaknesses, and inherent risks. It then tells the narrative of Margarida's criminal trial, including chapters on the civil suits, appeal, and Margarida's eventual fate. A map of late medieval Manosque is provided, as well as an example of a court notary's rough copy, a notarial act, a sample folio of a criminal inquest record. A timeline of Margarida?s life, list of characters, and two family trees provide useful information on key people in the story.

Here is a valuable, and fascinating, piece of social history. Watson sheds new light on a macabre yet frequently misunderstood subject.

From New York Times Bestselling Author Maria V. Snyder Choose: a quick death… or slow poison… Locked deep in the palace dungeon for killing her abuser, Yelena knows she’ll never be free again. The laws in Ixia are strict, and murderers must be executed, no matter the reason. But just as she’s resigned herself to her fate, she’s offered an extraordinary reprieve. As the food taster, Yelena will eat the best meals, have rooms in the palace—and risk assassination by anyone trying to kill the Commander of Ixia. To make matters worse, the chief of security deliberately feeds her Butterfly’s Dust, and only by appearing for her daily antidote will she delay an agonizing death from the poison. As Yelena tries to escape her new dilemma, disasters keep mounting. Rebels plot to seize Ixia and Yelena develops magical powers she can’t control. Her life is threatened again, and in order to survive, she must unravel the secrets behind the past she’s been running from. The Chronicles of Ixia Series by Maria V Snyder Book One: Poison Study Book Two: Magic Study Book Three: Fire Study Book Four: Storm Glass Book Five: Sea Glass Book Six: Spy Glass Book Seven: Shadow Study Book Eight: Night Study Book Nine: Dawn Study

In the wider world of German-speaking Europe, writes Jeffrey Freedman, the affair became a cause celebre, the object of a lively public debate that focused on an issue much on the minds of intellectuals in the age of Enlightenment: the problem of evil.".

"[An] uncanny Gothic mystery... Satisfying."—New York Times Book Review "A romping read with a deliciously dark conceit at its center... Reminded me of Alias Grace."—Kiran Millwood Hargrave From the author of The Silent Companions, a thrilling Victorian gothic horror story about a young seamstress who claims her needle and thread have the power to kill Dorothea Truelove is young, wealthy, and beautiful. Ruth Butterham is young, poor, and awaiting trial for murder. When Dorothea's charitable work brings her to Oakgate Prison, she is delighted by the chance to explore her fascination with phrenology and test her hypothesis that the shape of a person's skull can cast a light on their darkest crimes. But when she meets one of the prisoners, the teenaged seamstress Ruth, she is faced with another strange idea: that it is possible to kill with a needle and thread--because Ruth attributes her crimes to a supernatural power inherent in her stitches. The story Ruth has to tell of her deadly creations—of bitterness and betrayal, of death and dresses—will shake Dorothea's belief in rationality, and the power of redemption. Can Ruth be trusted? Is she mad, or a murderer? For fans of Shirley Jackson, The Poison Thread is a spine-tingling, sinister read about the evil that lurks behind the facade of innocence.