Women and Murder in Early Modern News Pamphlets and Broadside Ballads, 1573-1697

Essential Works for the Study of Early Modern Women, Series III, Part One, Volume 7

Randall Martin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351872355
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism for Comparative Literature
• Index: Literature

As voyeuristic and prurient as today's tabloid newspapers, early modern crime pamphlets and broadside ballads about women murderers tell of furtive love affairs and domestic poisonings, of battered wives who kill their abusive husbands, and of troubled mothers who murder their children. On first acquaintance, many pamphlets leave an impression of shallow sensationalism yoked to idealised repentance, and for that reason modern critics and historians have often discounted their importance as culturally significant artifacts. This volume presents a selection of over forty texts and is intended to encourage a reconsideration of these views. In his Introductory Note to the volume, Randall Martin discusses the narrative content and social commentary of these ballads, pamphlets and trial reports, and the contribution that they make to the discursive construction of the early modern female murderer through their representational strategies and evolving legal and gender contexts.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface by the General Editors
• Introductory Note
• Arthur Golding [concerning Anne Saunders]
• Anthony Munday [concerning Anne Saunders]
• [Concerning Ulalia Page]
• Thomas Deloney [concerning Ulalia Page]
• [Thomas Deloney concerning Ulalia Page]
• [Anne Welles]
• Gilbert Dugdale [concerning Elizabeth Caldwell]
• [Concerning Margaret Ferneseed]
• [Concerning Elizabeth Abbot]
• [Concerning Elizabeth James]
• [Concerning Anne Turner]
• T[homas] B[rewer] [concerning Anne Turner]
• T. Platte [concerning Anne Wallen]
• [Concerning Alice Davies]
• [Concerning Alice Arden]
• Henry Goodcole [concerning Elizabeth Evans, (Canberry Bess)]
• [Concerning Elizabeth Evans, (Canberry Bess)]
• Henry Goodcole [concerning Alice Clarke]
• [Concerning Susan Higges]
• [Concerning Anne Hamton]
• [Concerning Elizabeth Lillyman]
• [Concerning an unnamed wife]
• [Concerning Sarah Elestone]
• Sarah Elestone
• [Concerning Margaret Osgood]
• [Concerning Elizabeth Wigington]
• Elizabeth Wigington
• [Concerning Mary Hobry, possibly by Roger L'Estrange]
• [Concerning Mary Hobry]
• [Concerning Margaret Martel]
• [Concerning Annis Dell]
• [Concerning Martha Scambler]
• [Concerning Margaret Vincent]
• Henry Goodcole [concerning Elizabeth Barnes and Anne Willis]
• [W. Burdet concerning Anne Greene]
• [Richard Watkins concerning Anne Greene]
• [Concerning Jane Lawson]
• [Concerning Mrs Compton]