Penning poison : a history of anonymous letters /
"Receiving an unexpected and unsigned note is a disconcerting experience. In Penning Poison, Emily Cockayne traces the stories of such letters to all corners of English society over the period 1760-1939. She uncovers scandal, deception, class enmity, personal tragedy, and great loneliness. Some...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford ; New York :
Oxford University Press,
[2023]
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| Summary: | "Receiving an unexpected and unsigned note is a disconcerting experience. In Penning Poison, Emily Cockayne traces the stories of such letters to all corners of English society over the period 1760-1939. She uncovers scandal, deception, class enmity, personal tragedy, and great loneliness. Some messages were accusatory, some libellous, others bizarre. Technology, new postal networks, forensic techniques, and the emergence of professional police all influence the phenomenon of poison letter campaigns. This book puts the letters back into their local and psychology context, extending the work of detectives, to discover who may have written them and why." -- |
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| Physical Description: | xiv, 299 pages : illustrations, maps ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-289) and index. |
| ISBN: | 019879505X 9780198795056 |