Blood & Ivy - The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard

On November 23rd of 1849, in the heart of Boston, one of the city's richest men simply vanished. Dr. George Parkman, a Brahmin who owned much of Boston's West End, was last seen that afternoon visiting his alma mater, Harvard Medical School. Police scoured city tenements and the harbor, and leads put the elusive Dr. Parkman at sea or hiding in Manhattan. But one Harvard janitor held a much darker suspicion: that their ruthless benefactor had never left the Medical School building alive.

His shocking discoveries in a chemistry professor's laboratory engulfed America in one of its most infamous trials: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. John White Webster. A baffling case of red herrings, grave robbery, and dismemberment, it became a landmark case in the use of medical forensics and the meaning of reasonable doubt. Paul Collins brings nineteenth-century Boston back to life in vivid detail, weaving together newspaper accounts, letters, journals, court transcripts, and memoirs from this groundbreaking case.

Rich in characters and evocative in atmosphere, Blood & Ivy explores the fatal entanglement of new science and old money in one of America's greatest murder mysteries.

About the author

Paul Collins is the author of nine books of nonfiction. He is a Guggenheim Fellow and chair of the English Department at Portland State University.

Summary

“Well-researched and beautifully written.…Collins knows how to build suspense.” —San Francisco Chronicle

Product details

• Authors: Paul Collins, Collins Paul
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 19.08.2019
• EAN: 9780393357325
• ISBN: 978-0-393-35732-5
• Dimensions: 140 mm x 211 mm x 23 mm
• Weight: 289 g
• Illustrations: 8 illustrations
• Subjects: Fiction > Suspense; Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Non-fiction book > Politics, society, business > Biographies, autobiographies; Social sciences, law, business > Law > International law, foreign law; LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / General, Language: reference & general, Language: reference and general