August 1, 1875, Toronto: The naked body of a young woman is discovered in a pine box, half-buried in a ditch along Bloor Street. So begins Jeannie’s Demise, a real-life Victorian melodrama that played out in the bustling streets and courtrooms of “Toronto the Good,” cast with all the lurid stock characters of the genre. Historian Ian Radforth brings to life an era in which abortion was illegal, criminal proceedings were a spectator sport, and coded advertisements for back-alley pr...

In February 1890, in a remote swamp in rural southwestern Ontario, two woodsmen discovered the frozen body of a well-dressed young stranger killed by two bullets to the back of the head. Before long, police laid a murder charge on Reginald Birchall, a handsome young gentleman from London just arrived in Canada to conduct an emigration scam. Although accused of the cold-blooded murder, Birchall charmed everyone he met and delighted in the attention lavished by the press of Canada, the Unite...

In nineteenth-century Toronto, people took to the streets to express their jubilation on special occasions, such as the 1860 visit of the Prince of Wales and the return in 1885 of the local Volunteers who helped to suppress the Riel resistance in the North-West. In a contrasting mood, people also took to the streets in anger to object to government measures, such as the Rebellion Losses bill, to heckle rival candidates in provincial election campaigns, to assert their ethno-religious diffe...

In 1860, Queen Victoria sent her eighteen-year-old son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, on a goodwill mission to Canada and the United States. The young heir-apparent (later King Edward VII) had not yet gained his reputation as a fashion setter and rake, but he nevertheless attracted enormous crowds both in Canada, where it was the first royal visit, and in the United States. Civic leaders hosted the visitor in princely style, decorating their towns with triumphal arches and organizing roy...

Winner of the CrimeCon Clue Award for True Crime Book of the Year“When a doctor does go wrong, he is the first of criminals,” Sherlock Holmes observed during one of his most puzzling murder investigations. Incredibly, at the time the words of the world’s most famous fictional detective appeared in print in the Strand Magazine, a real-life Canadian doctor was stalking and murdering women in London’s downtrodden Lambeth neighbourhood. Dr. Thomas Nei...

“We are a trading community, a commercial people. Murder is doubtless a very shocking offence, nevertheless as what is done is not to be undone, let us make our money out of it.” Punch.Murder in nineteenth-century Britain was ubiquitous – not necessarily in quantity but in quality. This was the era of penny-bloods, early crime fiction and melodramas for the masses. This was a time when murder and entertainment were firmly entwined.In this meticulously researched and compell...

"Emma Griffin gives a new and powerful voice to the men and women whose blood and sweat greased the wheels of the Industrial Revolution" (Tim Hitchcock, author of Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London).This "provocative study" looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class ( The New Yorker). The era didn't just bring ...

Do women kill? Yes they do, but often for very different reasons from men ...Do women kill? Yes they do, but often for very different reasons from men ...Meet the women who have murdered - they've killed children, husbands, lovers, relatives and friends. they include the desperate, the poor, the abused, the sexually betrayed, and the downright callous. In some cases they were motivated by fear of society's disapproval, in others they acted to save themselves from violence. Among the...

In the early years after Confederation in Canada, the rising nation needed workers that could take advantage of the abundant resources. Until the time of the Depression, 100,000 impoverished children from the British Isles were sent overseas by well-meaning philanthropists to solve the colony’s farm-labour shortage. They were known as the "home children," and they were lonely and frightened youngsters to whom a new life in Canada meant only hardship and abuse. This bundle of titles tells t...

Hugely respected, extensively quoted and widely regarded as the 'bible' of Ripper studies, The Complete Jack the Ripper A to Z is the ultimate reference for anyone fascinated by the Jack the Ripper mystery. This new, rewritten, up-to-date edition includes sources and well over 100 photographs.The Complete jack the Ripper A-Z has an entry for almost every person involved in the case, from suspects and witnesses to policemen and journalists, plus the ordinary people who became caught up in t...

A groundbreaking history of convicts in Australia which lays bare the distortions and myths that caused the nation to deny its own past.; Why is it that Australians are still misled by myths about their convict heritage? Why are so many family historians surprised to find a convict ancestor in their family trees? Why did an entire society collude to cover up its past? Babette Smith traces the stories of hundreds of convicts over the 80 years of convict transportation to Australia. Putting ...

In December 1883, Peter Lazier was shot in the heart during a bungled robbery at a Prince Edward County farmhouse. Three local men, pleading innocence from start to finish, were arrested and charged with his murder. Two of them — Joseph Thomset and David Lowder — were sentenced to death by a jury of local citizens the following May. Nevertheless, appalled community members believed at least one of them to be innocent — even pleading with prime minister John A. Macdonald to spare them from ...