Did She Kill Him?: A Torrid True Story of Adultery, Arsenic, and Murder in Victorian England

By: Kate Colquhoun

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Synopsis: “An intriguing story told in the style of Thomas Hardy or George Eliot, if they traded in true crime” (Kirkus Reviews). In the summer of 1889, young Southern belle Florence Maybrick stood trial for the alleged arsenic poisoning of her much older husband, Liverpool cotton merchant James Maybrick. The “Maybrick Mystery” had all the makings of a sensation: a pretty, flirtatious woman; resentful, gossiping servants; rumors of gambling and debt; and scandalous mutual infidelity. The case cracked the varnish of Victorian respectability, shocking and exciting the public in equal measure as they clamored to read the latest revelations of Florence’s past and glimpse her likeness in Madame Tussaud’s. Florence’s fate was fiercely debated in the courtroom, on the front pages of the newspapers, and in parlors and backyards across the country. Did she poison her husband? Was her previous infidelity proof of murderous intentions? Was James’s own habit of self-medicating to blame for his demise? In this book, historian and CWA Gold Dagger Award nominee Kate Colquhoun recounts an utterly absorbing tale of addiction, deception, and adultery that keeps you asking to the very last page: Did she kill him?