Victorian Serial Killers

A native of County Durham, Mary Ann Cotton was the most prolific female serial killer in British history. This new book from Simon Webb and Miranda Brown re-tells her story, re-examines the evidence, and includes a startling new theory about the so-called West Auckland Poisoner. Illustrated.

Jack the Ripper; In the footsteps of the notorious serial killer - Looking deeper than the victims and suspects themselves, this journal explores the conspiracies behind one of the world's most intriquing of true tales with reports of the day right up to the findings of 21st century journalists and sleuths. A must read for all Ripperologists and those who want a powerful insight to this timeless tragedy.

Step back into the gaslit alleys of Victorian London, where a shadow known only as Jack the Ripper unleashed a reign of terror that haunts us to this day. In the autumn of 1888, the impoverished district of Whitechapel became the hunting ground for a phantom. A series of brutal, ritualistic murders of destitute women exposed the dark underbelly of the world's wealthiest empire and launched one of the most intense and frustrating manhunts in history. The killer was never caught, leaving behind a terrifying legend and a perfect, unsolved mystery. This meticulously researched book cuts through...

This #1 New York Times bestseller and deliciously creepy horror novel has a storyline inspired by the Ripper murders and an unexpected, blood-chilling conclusion. Seventeen-year-old Audrey Rose Wadsworth was born a lord's daughter, with a life of wealth and privilege stretched out before her...

The year is 1888 and a brutal serial killer stalks the streets of London. For the first time, the press realise if it bleeds it leads... Using press reports from the time The Ripper Reports reveals the crimes of Jack the Ripper and the Whitechapel Murders as events unfolded. If you already know the Ripper crimes, this book reveals the fallacies, misinformation and conspiracies initially reported as events unfolded and England’s first serial killer was revealed to the world. If you are new to Jack the Ripper you can experience the rollercoaster of news revelations as the horrified ...

Polly, Annie, Elizabeth, Catherine, and Mary-Jane are famous for the same thing, though they never met. What they had in common was the year of their murders: 1888. The person responsible was never identified, but the character created by the press to fill that gap has become far more famous than any of these five women. For more than a century, newspapers have been keen to tell us that "the Ripper" preyed on prostitutes. Not only is this untrue, as historian Hallie Rubenhold has discovered, but it has prevented the real stories of these fascinating women from being told.

Hours later, the man’s cold body lies in the city mortuary, alongside the woman he couldn’t save. And his sister, unconventional nurse Gemma Tate, tracks down troubled police inspector Sebastian Bell to unravel the truth. Sebastian has enough pressure to solve the murder of an aristocratic heiress without Gemma meddling in his case. But the cryptic sentences she brings him from her brother’s notebook could be a crucial lead. If only they knew what “milky way” meant.

He's been called a sailor, a doctor, a butcher, and a prince – yet no one truly knows. For more than a century, Jack the Ripper has been a blank canvas for countless theories, obscuring the facts behind myths, lies and half-truths. In Murder Tales: Jack the Ripper, crime historian H. N. Lloyd cuts through the fog to reveal what really happened in London’s Whitechapel. With his signature dry wit and meticulous research, Lloyd re-examines the evidence for a “medical” Ripper, dissects eyewitness testimonies, and exposes where the police investigation succeeded and failed. He also ...

In the 1840s, the workhouse was the centre of Britain’s response to poverty. This book tells the story of one such institution — Southwell Workhouse — during a single Victorian decade, when the New Poor Law was working exactly as intended. Based entirely on contemporary records, this is not a novel and not a work of fiction. It reconstructs daily life inside the workhouse through its own rules, registers, and reports: admission, classification, routine, labour, diet, punishment, illness, authority, and exit. Families were separated, work was enforced, hunger was regulated, and decline...

Some houses keep secrets. This one keeps bodies. Desperate for work and running out of options, nurse Emma Rothwell accepts a position too good to refuse: six months at an isolated Victorian mansion caring for an elderly woman. The pay is extraordinary. The location is remote. And the Winthrop family has secrets that have festered for nearly fifty years. Helena Winthrop is dying, but not from old age. Someone in the house is slowly poisoning her—and they're using Emma to do it. As Emma fights to keep her patient alive, she uncovers the truth about Sarah Kehoe, a sixteen-year-old girl who ...

In late-Victorian London, Minnie Pheby became a scandal: a young woman accused of burglary at a time when breaking into houses was considered a man’s crime. Branded by the press as the “lady burglar”, she was hunted, punished, and turned into a cautionary tale. Catwoman of West London reconstructs her story from surviving records — and reveals what her crimes exposed about class, gender, and the fragile promise of the Victorian home.

Laying out all the evidence in the most comprehensive summary ever written about the Ripper, this book, by a London police officer and crime authority, has subjected every theory - including those that have emerged in recent years-to the same deep scrutiny. The author also examines the mythology surrounding the case and provides some fascinating insights into the portrayal of the Ripper on stage and screen and on the printed page. More seriously, he also examines the horrifying parallel crimes of the Düsseldorf Ripper and the Yorkshire Ripper.

“A tour de force of storytelling.” —Louise Penny, #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Chief Inspector Gamache series “Jobb’s excellent storytelling makes the book a pleasure to read.” —The New York Times Book Review ”When a doctor does go wrong he is the first of...

They didn’t look like monsters. They looked like spouses. Caretakers. Neighbors. Between the 1800s and the early 1900s, some of the most dangerous killers in history lived ordinary lives. They married. They hosted dinners. They offered help. And behind closed doors, they killed again and again. This book explores real, documented cases of men and women who murdered multiple victims during the rise of modern society, when cities were growing, newspapers were spreading stories faster than ever, and trust was often misplaced. Some poisoned their victims quietly at the table. Others buried ...

In London's working class district, the Forty Elephants, moved unseen. This all-female gang operated for decades with adept coordination and ruthless consistency. Outsmarting department stores, confounding police, and defying expectations in a city that never, never, never saw them coming.

The Whitechapel Murders of 1888 have remained unsolved for over 130 years and hundreds of theories have been suggested as to the killer's identity. Despite numerous books claiming to unmask the infamous Victorian villain, none have come close…until now. The authors of this book are all members of H Division Crime Club, the world's largest body of experts on the Jack the Ripper murders. They have all come together for the first time in history to deliver their own personal research into each suspect and to finally nail down the identity of the man known as Jack the Ripper.

When poisoned chocolates spread terror through Victorian Brighton, suspicion fell on no one — until it fell on Christiana Edmunds. Respectable, intelligent, and outwardly composed, Edmunds defied every expectation of a criminal. Her case forced Victorian England to confront uncomfortable questions about obsession, insanity, and female violence. The Chocolate Poisoner is a gripping true crime history of a woman who reasoned carefully, acted deliberately, and was silenced for the rest of her life.

Rayner’s Ripper, the sixth book in the Victorian Casebook series, is an exciting story of murder and intrigue based on the infamous Whitechapel murders committed in the Autumn of 1888 by the serial killer popularly known as ‘Jack the Ripper’.Scotland Yard’s dandy, Inspector Richard Rayner and his close associate, Sergeant Henry Bustle are faced with tracking down the killer who has brought fear and terror to the people of London’s East End, but the challenges presented are vast and mystifying. When more prostitutes are slain by the Ripper, public concern results in protests and ...

On Halloween night, 1828, in the West Port district of Edinburgh, Scotland, a woman sometimes known as Madgy Docherty was last seen in the company of William Burke and William Hare. Days later, police discovered her remains in the surgery of the prominent anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Docherty was the final victim of the most atrocious murder spree of the century. Together with their accomplices, Burke and Hare would be accused of killing 16 people over the course of 12 months in order to sell the corpses as "subjects" for dissection.

Two grisly murders of men named Siegfried. Both killed by a spear in the back. Agatha and Eustace, now married, are in Germany "enjoying" Wagner's opera Götterdämmerung when Agatha falls ill. While Agatha is recuperating at a sanatorium from the illness which almost killed her, Eustace investigates a series of strange murders at the request of the wily Iron Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck. All of the victims are called Siegfried. What is the connection with Götterdämmerung where the German 'hero', Siegfried, meets a similar bloody end? Eustace investigates little realising just how close ...