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1893 Book: 'The Fall River Tragedy - A History of the Borden Murders'

posted 14 years ago by Psyklist
10 replies | jump to latest

In 1893, Edwin H. Porter, the police reporter for the Fall River Globe newspaper, wrote the book The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders (Fall River [Mass.] : G.R.H. Buffinton, 1893). The original book can be bought (sometimes) for hundreds of dollars and a 1985 republication can be bought for at least $50. However, the original book has been scanned and posted on the Harvard University Library's "Page Delivery Service," where it can be read for free. It's an interesting book with many photos and it includes drawings of the layout of the Borden house.

http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:614251

From the book's title page:

A PLAIN STATEMENT OF THE MATERIAL FACTS PERTAINING TO THE MOST FAMOUS CRIME OF THE CENTURY, INCLUDING THE STORY OF THE ARREST AND PRELIMINARY TRIAL OF MISS LIZZIE A. BORDEN AND A FULL REPORT OF THE SUPERIOR COURT TRIAL, WITH A HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED ACCOUNT OF THE RENOWNED TRICKEY-MCHENRY AFFAIR
COMPILED FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES AND PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED WITH ORIGINAL ENGRAVINGS

[–] IFeedPigeons 13 years ago

What a great post, and thanks so much for including the link!! I can't wait to get started on it very soon. A thousand cheers!

Jaywalking is RAMPANT!!!
~ Barney Fife

[–] Psyklist 13 years ago

Thanks, IFeedPigeons! I hope you enjoy reading it!

I read the whole book that was posted and I didn't come across any missing pages of text. However, it seems there might be one page missing from the opening pages that had a picture of Lizzie Borden on it. This would be the page preceeding the page that Harvard has catalogued as "CHAPTER I. (seq.8)"; (seq. 8 has the picture of the Borden's house).

Here's a link to a website that shows the page that may be missing. Maybe it simply wasn't printed in the edition that Harvard has in it's collection, for whatever reason.

http://phayemuss.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/the-rarity-of-porters-the-fa ll-river-tragedy/

[–] IFeedPigeons 13 years ago

Hi, Psyklist (is that pronounced 'cyclist'?) -

Again, I cannot thank you enough for the book link. I have just started Chapter 7. That 'text view' can get pretty screwy, can't it? Then you must look at the image page to read it from there, but that is my only quibble with the site.

You know that of course I had to 'Favorite' the websiite that you linked for the missing picture! I'm in "LIZZIE HEAVEN!" The story just fascinates me (and you and billions of others, I'm sure). More Lizzie reading materials - fantastic.

Cheers!!!

Jaywalking is RAMPANT!!!
~ Barney Fife

[–] 13 years ago

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[–] 13 years ago

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[–] Psyklist 11 years ago

Hi IFeedPigeons,

Just to let you know, I included a little more information about Harvard's copy of the book in a response to Letalis572's post.

(P.S. Yes, "Psyklist" is pronounced "cyclist.")

[–] SeaLion9139 11 years ago

Thank you for posting that link! (It still works FYI, as of 03/24/14)

[–] Psyklist 11 years ago

You're welcome! Glad to find that the link is still active; I check about once a year to see if it still is.

If you're interested...

I believe I've also found a picture---from Australia of all places---of the lady who most likely donated the book to the Harvard University Library.

In Harvard's copy of the book (http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:614251), the first image has a note saying "GIFT OF MISS CHARLOTTE BRAYTON." After a quick online search, I found a March 2, 1937, Sydney Morning Herald newspaper article that has a picture of "Miss Charlotte Brayton of Fall River, Mass., U.S.A."

Here's the link to the newspaper article and photo:

http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/17348239

P.S. Here's another article published 4/20/37 that is related to the above article and it mentions her again:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=a-ZaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=EZIDAAAAIBA J&pg=7365%2C2866682

[–] leybadana 8 years ago

Thank you kindly.

"Say Auf Wiedersehen to your Nazi balls"!

[–] Faridah (1363) 6 years ago

Thank you. After watching this movie on Amazon Prime I was looking for a good book on the subject. I have a Kindle and subscribe to Prime reading unlimited but not many books showed up. I’m excited to read this one as it was written much closer to when the crime took place. Hopefully it is more factual than others.