An authentic and faithful history of the mysterious murder of Maria Marten, with a full development of all the extraordinary circumstances which led to the discovery of her body in the Red barn; to which is added the trial of William Corder. Taken at large in short hand specially for this work, with an account of his execution, dissection, &c., and many interestng particulars relative to the village of Polstead and its vicinity; the prison correspondence of Corder, and fifty-three letters, in answer to his advertisement for a wife / The whole compiled and arranged with upwards of three hundred explanatory notes, by J. Curtis.

  • Curtis, J. (James), active 1828-1835
Date:
1828
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An authentic and faithful history of the mysterious murder of Maria Marten, with a full development of all the extraordinary circumstances which led to the discovery of her body in the Red barn; to which is added the trial of William Corder. Taken at large in short hand specially for this work, with an account of his execution, dissection, &c., and many interestng particulars relative to the village of Polstead and its vicinity; the prison correspondence of Corder, and fifty-three letters, in answer to his advertisement for a wife / The whole compiled and arranged with upwards of three hundred explanatory notes, by J. Curtis. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    introduce illustrative matter which, at first view, may appear irrelevant to the general design, with- out his incurring their censure. The volume now introduced to the world has been the result of very considerable labour ; and, in order that it might not only meet with the ‘public appro- bation in the first instance, exertions of no ordinary ‘kind have been made to render it a work of general information—and the compiler has travelled. now and then into the land of digression, in order to bring home stores for that purpose. When the mysterious murder of Maria Marten was discovered in April last, the ‘‘ deed of dreadful note’ was echoed throughout the land; and it appeared so much like a romance, that it was but little regarded by thousands, and many were wont to say thata vile hoax had been imposed upon the press: the enormity of the crime alleged to have been commit- ted even caused the most credulous to hesitate. It has been the endeavour of the compiler of this history to detect fallacy, to rectify errors, to ascer- tain truth—and, moreover, to establish the authen- ticity of what he has adopted for insertion, either from evidence given under the solemn sanction of an oath, unquestionable viva voce testimony, or a multiplicity of epistolary correspondence, trans- mitted by persons of known respectability. By means and exertions like these it is that multifa- rious subjects are introduced, which will not fail to be amusing to the general reader, and some of them may not be deemed unimportant by persons of scientific research. The Polstead Catastrophe, or the Mysterious Murder of Maria Marten, may (to pursue allitera- tion) be called “ a Medley,”—for such it is—as it