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BestsellerE-book
Author Haber, Carole, 1951- author.

Title The trials of Laura Fair : sex, murder, and insanity in the Victorian West / Carole Haber.

Publication Info. Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, [2013].
©2013

Item Status

Description 1 online resource (xii, 310 pages) : illustrations
Physical Medium polychrome
Description text file
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index.
Contents Introduction : Laura D. Fair and the unwritten law -- The she-devil known as Mrs. Laura D. Fair -- The case for the prosecution -- The defense responds -- The Appeal -- The Second Trial -- The Fair Lunatic -- Epilogue: The Many Faces of Laura D. Fair.
Summary On November 3, 1870, on a San Francisco ferry, Laura Fair shot a bullet into the heart of her married lover, A. P. Crittenden. Throughout her two murder trials, Fair's lawyers, supported by expert testimony from physicians, claimed that the shooting was the result of temporary insanity caused by a severely painful menstrual cycle. The first jury disregarded such testimony, choosing instead to focus on Fair's disreputable character. In the second trial, however, an effective defense built on contemporary medical beliefs and gendered stereotypes led to a verdict that shocked Americans across the country. In this rousing history, Carole Haber probes changing ideas about morality and immorality, masculinity and femininity, love and marriage, health and disease, and mental illness to show that all these concepts were reinvented in the Victorian West. Haber's book examines the era's most controversial issues, including suffrage, the gendered courts, women's physiology, and free love. This notorious story enriches our understanding of Victorian society, opening the door to a discussion about the ways in which reputation, especially female reputation, is shaped.
Local Note eBooks on EBSCOhost EBSCO eBook Subscription Academic Collection - North America
Subject Fair, Laura D., 1837-1919 -- Trials, litigation, etc.
Fair, Laura D., 1837-1919.
Crittenden, Alexander Parker, 1816-1870.
Crittenden, Alexander Parker, 1816-1870.
Fair, Laura D., 1837-1919.
Crittenden, Alexander Parker, 1816-1870.
Trials (Murder) -- California -- San Francisco.
Trials (Murder)
California -- San Francisco.
Genre/Form Electronic books.
Trials, litigation, etc.
Other Form: Print version: Haber, Carole, 1951- Trials of Laura Fair. Chapel Hill : The University of North Carolina Press, 2013 9781469607580 (DLC) 2013002880 (OCoLC)827724317
ISBN 9781469612539 (electronic book)
1469612534 (electronic book)
9781469607580
1469607581