Lizzie Borden Society Forum

Hi! I am on online student at UNC Greensboro. I returned to school after a 30 year absence and I'm earning my BA in Liberal Studies.
I am taking a very interesting class called: Great Trials In American History. As a project we are required to compose an annotated bibliography on a historical american trial.
I have chosen the Lizzie Borden trial as it has always captivated me. I was wondering if you coul direct me to some realiable books, websites, trial records and articles that I could use in my project. A lot of what I've seen is fluff and conjecture.
Thank you for your attention and I look forward to "chatting" with you.

Becky :)

PS: Lizzie and I share the same Bday, July 19th! Mine was in 1959, though.

Hi, Becky7/19! Welcome to the forum.

You can download a transcription of the entire trial as well as most of all the official documents in the case (for FREE) in PDF format at the Virtual Museum and Library at:

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/Resources ... uments.htm

Get a comfortable chair as just the trial itself is some 1900 pages long.

Have fun browsing at the library itself: http://lizzieandrewborden.com/

Lots of goodies! Again, welcome, and good for you going back to school.

there is also a free download of the hatchet magazine at the website. that free issue download changes every now and then- and there are fine articles in there that have been fact-checked.

Thank you Harry and Kat! I'll get started right away. :)

Yes Becky: With the advice given by Harry you can't go wrong.

The Lizzie Borden Trial is one which at times takes on a life, a story, of its own, sometimes driven by legend and folklore and unreliable conjecture.

The best source was Harry's suggestion.

Go to the source: transcripts, court testimony, dated official documents and in most times, news reports of the period from Fall River newspapers.

But, these can be very long and exhausting to read from start to finish. All-in-all they were published for research and study.

There are some brief mainstay reads on the case that are pretty reliable,
and some good overall treatises which handle the case with little prejudice. Along with these are some unreliable studies that make for good reads but contain theories and suppositions and far fetched scenarios.

For some reliable and concise studies on the case you may want to read the following:

David Kent, FORTY WACKS.
Robert Sullivan, GOODBYE LIZZIE BORDEN
Edmund Pearson's, THE TRIAL OF LIZZIE BORDEN (a somewhat formal look at the case with lots of trial transcript. Pearson thought Lizzie guilty)
Williams, Smithburn and Peterson, LIZZIE BORDEN A CASE BOOK OF FAMILY AND CRIME IN THE 1890s.
...........also,

In the way of reference you may look to

Leonard Rebello, LIZZIE BORDEN PAST AND PRESENT (this title may be difficult to find but is excellent reference) and,
Paul Dennis Hoffman, YESTERDAY IN OLD FALL RIVER (a list of who's who in the times and trial of Lizzie Borden)

These are all reliable. There may be an error or two but good faith was used by all these authors to get it right.

My favorite is Edward Radin, LIZZIE BORDEN THE UNTOLD STORY. An easy book to find. An easy read. Pretty much accurate. Radin does a good job until he tries to make a case for the maid as the guilty party. If you can ignore his theory about Bridget Sullivan, Edward Radin's book is one I can recommend. He also has a very enlightened attack on Edmund Pearson's scenario that Lizzie did it.

..........................................................................................................

Then there are the fun reads. Very factual but with wacky scenarios and theories and errors. After you gain a good grip of what the truths are, these accounts cannot be ignored.

They BE:

Victoria Lincoln, LIZZIE BORDEN BY DAYLIGHT (Lizzie did it)
Frank Speiring, LIZZIE, (Emma did it)
Arnold Brown, LIZZIE BORDEN, THE LEGEND, THE TRUTH THE FINAL CHAPTER (Wacky, wacky read, Billy Borden Lizzie's half brother did it)

Of course there are others. But these are some of the big players.

But to find the real truth go to the source, the trial transcripts, the newspaper reports of the day.



Good luck Becky.........

Hello, Becky, and welcome!

Another great source is our Forum - right here. They keep our posts archived, and you can easily do a 'search' by typing in a key word or two.

The sources are cited on many of the posts. I would play it safe and, unless you know yourself from your readings that the post is correct, I'd only include info from the posts that are backed up by a source.

Have fun! Lizzie is addicting! When you find out so much on the case, there is always more, more and more.

An added note:

The books I listed above were non-fiction accounts. There are countless fictional accounts that one may confuse as true accounts. So if you find a cheap-e at a sale or bookstore make sure it's not fiction. After years of studying the case these fictional accounts are fun to read. Though, some can be very painful and just plain trash, but I found that this is a discovery that must be made by the reader. Some I found worthless gained great praise from other readers.

Back to the reason for this specific post:

The books I mentioned above are early accounts on the case.

Pearson's book was the first writer to take a scholarly look at the case. Pearson, a Harvard man and librarian, died the year "The Trial of Lizzie Borden" was published. (1937)

Some of his many books are about Libraries and Book Collecting. He wrote the first true account of the Borden murders along with several other books about murder. "Murder at Smutty Nose" is one of my favorites.

Edward Radin was the second popular writer to write seriously about the case in "Lizzie Borden the Untold Story." (1961) Radin was a prolific writer of true crime accounts. He was the first to point a finger at someone other than Lizzie as the murderer. Radin was the beginning in a host of new writers who had their own idea of how the crime was committed and who they thought did it. In a world when most believed Lizzie did it and where Pearson's account was the only real popular study Radin was the first to question both Pearson and the guilt of another.

Thus, Pearson and Radin are two must reads in any critical study of the Borden murders.

There is also the only contemporary book written on the case (written when the trial just ended) called "The Fall River Tragedy" by Edwin Porter. I think you can download the 1893 copy on this site. It was republished around 1995, sold out, and goes for around $100 (it was $35 when I bought mine in the '90s).

What is cool about this book is that it was written by Edwin Porter, a police reporter who was actually there every day. He even went into the jail where they were keeping Lizzie during the trial. He saw her (I don't know as he actually ever spoke to her) and many of the people associated with the trial.

Mr. Porter lived in Fall River, and during one of my trips out there I came across his burial plot - and it had NO MARKER! Nothing - just the bare ground there. He died young, at about aged 39, from tuberculosis.

The Lizzie Borden Society has taken this project under its wing - to raise funds to purchase Mr. Porter a grave stone. People still reference his book to this day.

(Donations may be made on 'The Hatchet' webpage.)

You can buy the borden trial in the print form of 3 books from this website, the link is border books and gifts and then the lulu press link.

Many thanks to all of you who have responded. I'll let you know how it goes.

Becky :)

here is a link to the keeley library online that has some lizzie borden related items as well as history of fall river mass.

http://www.sailsinc.org/durfee/fulltext.htm

Hi Becky, welcome to the forum . Check ou the archives portion of this website. It has the trial transcripts and everything. Even the "old message board" with alot of information in it. And if you have a question, jump on the board and ask. I do all the time, and Harry and Kat usaully set me start as to what I was reading.

Yes, Speaking about Edward Radin in my post above and his personal scenario about Bridget Sullivan being the guilty party, there's a funny post on MONDO you should listen to.

Apparently, Paul Harvey of "The Rest of the Story" fame held Mr. Radin in high regard, going as far as relaying the truth as he saw it, that being, that Bridget did it.

Of course the retelling by Harvey is classic. The voice, though ancient and shaky, is still there and still holds the listener hostage to wait for "The Rest of the Story."

It's MONDO'S latest post. Worth a listen.

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/MondoLizzie/

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/MondoLizzie/

http://lizzieandrewborden.com/MondoLizzie/

That was so cool!! I remember listening to Paul Harvey when I was in jr. high school.