Conley draws from the rich resources of The Old Bailey Proceedings Online, 1674–1913 (ed. Tim Hitchcock et al.) to present an overview of the prosecution of women for homicide over a span of centuries. Conley begins with the premise that “changes in the types of homicides for which women were prosecuted as well as the official responses and media coverage of these crimes reflect, parallel, and occasionally challenge social, legal, and cultural changes in women’s status, opportunities, and stereotypes” (1). Working from contemporary publications that summarized proceedings at London’s central criminal court and their reports on1,408 women charged with involvement in criminal homicides, Conley argues that women who killed went from being depicted as wicked but fully morally and legally responsible agents to being portrayed most often as vulnerable victims of physiological factors beyond their control. In chapters that divide the material into four temporal blocks—1674–1753, 1754–1833, 1834–1873, and 1874–1913—Conley...

You do not currently have access to this content.