Witch of New York

Regular price €27.50
Regular price €28.50 Sale Sale price €27.50
1800s
A01=Alex Hortis
abortion
adultry
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
alcohol
Amanda Knox
American Crime
Ann Eliza
arson
Author_Alex Hortis
automatic-update
bludgeoned to death
capital murder
Casey Anthony
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BG
Category=DNB
Category=JBCT
Category=JFD
COP=United States
Delivery_Pre-order
divorce
double homicide
Emeline Houseman
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
female murderer
infanticide
Language_English
Lizzie Borden
media circus
murder
murder trial
murderess
nineteenth century
PA=Temporarily unavailable
penny press
Polly Bodine
Price_€20 to €50
PS=Active
softlaunch
tabloid
tabloid sensation
true crime

Product details

  • ISBN 9781639363919
  • Weight: 522g
  • Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
  • Publication Date: 25 Apr 2024
  • Publisher: Pegasus Books
  • Publication City/Country: US
  • Product Form: Hardback
  • Language: English
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Before the sensational cases of Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony—before even Lizzie Borden—there was Polly Bodine, the first American woman put on trial for capital murder in our nation’s debut media circus.

On Christmas night, December 25, 1843, in a serene village on Staten Island, shocked neighbors discovered the burnt remains of twenty-four-year-old mother Emeline Houseman and her infant daughter, Ann Eliza. In a perverse nativity, someone bludgeoned to death a mother and child in their home—and then covered up the crime with hellfire.

When an ambitious district attorney charges Polly Bodine (Emelin’s sister-in-law) with a double homicide, the new “penny press” explodes. Polly is a perfect media villain: she’s a separated wife who drinks gin, commits adultery, and has had multiple abortions. Between June 1844 and April 1846, the nation was enthralled by her three trials—in Staten Island, Manhattan, and Newburgh—for the “Christmas murders.”

After Polly’s legal dream team entered the fray, the press and the public debated not only her guilt, but her character and fate as a fallen woman in society. Public opinion split into different camps over her case. Edgar Allen Poe and Walt Whitman covered her case as young newsmen. P. T. Barnum made a circus out of it. James Fenimore Cooper’s last novel was inspired by her trials.

The Witch of New York is the first narrative history about the dueling trial lawyers, ruthless newsmen, and shameless hucksters who turned the Polly Bodine case into America’s formative tabloid trial. An origin story of how America became addicted to sensationalized reporting of criminal trials, The Witch of New York vividly reconstructs an epic mystery from Old New York—and uses the Bodine case to challenge our system of tabloid justice of today.
Alex Hortis, author of The Mob and the City, is a constitutional lawyer and crime historian. He has been interviewed on national television for AMC’s The Making of the Mob and has been a featured speaker at the Mob Museum in Las Vegas, the New York Public Library, and the Enoch Pratt Free Library. He is a former federal law clerk for the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and is a graduate of New York University School of Law. Alex lives in Washington, DC. Please visit Alex at www.alexhortis.com