In Cara Robertson’s “enthralling new book,” The Trial of Lizzie Borden, “the reader is to serve as judge and jury” (The New York Times). Based on twenty years of research and recently unearthed evidence, this true crime and legal history is the “definitive account to date of one of America’s most notorious and enduring murder mysteries” (Publishers Weekly, starred review). When Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally hacked to death in Fall River, Massachusetts, in August 1892, the arrest of the couple’s younger daughter Lizzie turned the case into international news and her murder trial into a spectacle unparalleled in American history. Reporters flocked to the scene. Well-known columnists took up conspicuous seats in the courtroom. The defendant was relentlessly scrutinized for signs of guilt or innocence. Everyone—rich and poor, suffragists and social conservatives, legal scholars and laypeople—had an opinion about Lizzie Borden’s guilt or innocence. Was she a cold-blooded murderess or an unjustly persecuted lady? Did she or didn’t she? An essential piece of American mythology, the popular fascination with the Borden murders has endured for more than one hundred years. Told and retold in every conceivable genre, the murders have secured a place in the American pantheon of mythic horror. In contrast, “Cara Robertson presents the story with the thoroughness one expects from an attorney…Fans of crime novels will love it” (Kirkus Reviews). Based on transcripts of the Borden legal proceedings, contemporary newspaper accounts, unpublished local accounts, and recently unearthed letters from Lizzie herself, The Trial of Lizzie Borden is “a fast-paced, page-turning read” (Booklist, starred review) that offers a window into America in the Gilded Age. This “remarkable” (Bustle) book “should be at the top of your reading list” (PopSugar).

“One of America’s most notorious murder cases inspires this feverish debut” novel that goes inside the mind of Lizzie Borden (The Guardian). On the morning of August 4, 1892, Lizzie Borden calls out to her maid: Someone’s killed Father. The brutal ax-murder of Andrew and Abby Borden in their home in Fall River, Massachusetts, leaves little evidence and many unanswered questions. In this riveting debut novel, Sarah Schmidt reimagines the day of the infamous murders as an intimate story of a family devoid of love. While neighbors struggle to understand why anyone would want to harm the respected Bordens, those close to the family have a different tale to tell―of a father with an explosive temper, a spiteful stepmother, and two spinster sisters desperate for their independence. As the police search for clues, Lizzie’s memories of that morning flash in scattered fragments. Had she been in the barn or the pear arbor to escape the stifling heat of the house? When did she last speak to her stepmother? Were they really gone and would everything be better now? Shifting among the perspectives of the unreliable Lizzie, her older sister Emma, the housemaid Bridget, and the enigmatic stranger Benjamin, the events of that fateful day are slowly revealed through a high-wire feat of storytelling.

One Thursday morning, August 1892, in the safe and sleepy mill town of Fall River, Massachusetts, Andrew and Abby Borden were savagely hacked to death in their home. Their upstanding and respectable younger daughter, Lizzie, was suspected and tried for their murders but was acquitted of the crime. Fall River, Massachusetts, is a port town on Mount Hope Bay, at the mouth of the Taunton River. The city has numerous historical buildings and tourists come to see the famous battleship USS Massachusetts from World War 2. The ancient Indian name for the area is Quequechan, which means "falling water." In 1656 the community was established by settlers hailing from Plymouth Colony. In 1811, the first cotton mill was established, and in time the city became well-known for its textile mills, which brought it prosperity well into the 1920s. It was these mills in large part that made Lizzie Borden's father, Andrew, a rich man by 1892. David Rehak spent eight years (four years of study, two years of research, and two more years of writing and revision) in the production of this book. He became intrigued with Lizzie Borden after viewing an A&E television biography on her in 1996. According to Mr. Rehak, Lizzie was an average, unremarkable woman, and the most extraordinary, criminal or criminal suspect in history. She was a tiny grain of sand, an absolute nobody who no one took much notice of, and if she had not been accused of murder, she would have lived a low profile life and vanished from the world's memory like the flame of a candle. But after she was accused of murder, she became an unforgettable symbol and legend, an absolute somebody. The debate on whether Lizzie Borden was innocent or guiltybrings out passionate feelings and disagreements in every sort of person. In fact, during the trial, according to the New York Times, it was estimated that about nineteen hundred marriages ended in divorce because of the intense difference of opinion between husbands and wives that the controversy created. Included in this book are strikingly rare, new and unpublished revelations about Lizzie's private life. The book also contains photographs, cartoons, original artwork, quotes, and poetry, most of which are rare and never before seen. Did Lizzie Borden take an "axe" and kill her parents? The divide between those who believe she did the crime and those who don't, sometimes runs deep. This book reveals certain probabilities that should not be suppressed or ignored, probabilities that deserves scholarly and thoughtful consideration.

When Milton and Marlo Fauster die in a marshmallow-bear explosion, they get sent straight to Heck, an otherworldly reform school. Milton can understand why his kleptomaniac sister is here, but Milton is—or was—a model citizen. Has a mistake been made? Not according to Bea “Elsa” Bubb, the Principal of Darkness. She doesn’t make mistakes. She personally sees to it that Heck—whether it be home ec class with Lizzie Borden, ethics with Richard Nixon, or gym with Blackbeard the pirate—is especially, well, heckish for the Fausters. Will Milton and Marlo find a way to escape? Or are they stuck here for all eternity, or until they turn eighteen, whichever comes first? ★ “The author’ umpteen clever allusions . . . make this book truly sparkle.”—Publishers Weekly, Starred

Presents information on the axe murders of Andrew and Abby Borden in 1892, a crime for which their daughter Lizzie went to trial, featuring reproductions of articles from forty-one newspapers across the U.S., official correspondence and transcripts, and discussion of the plays, opera, and ballet inspired by the crimes.