Research Catalog

Blood & ivy : the 1849 murder that scandalized Harvard

Title
Blood & ivy : the 1849 murder that scandalized Harvard / Paul Collins.
Author
Collins, Paul, 1969-
Publication
  • New York, N.Y. : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2018]
  • ©2018

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StatusFormatAccessCall NumberItem Location
Book/TextUse in library JFE 18-8813Schwarzman Building - Main Reading Room 315

Details

Description
xix, 347 pages : illustrations; 25 cm
Summary
  • Traces the scandalous murder of a Harvard Medical School graduate and the ensuing trial that riveted mid-nineteenth-century America, exploring how the case established important precedents in medical forensics and the definition of reasonable doubt.
  • "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 offered hefty rewards as 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 even 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--of Harvard's greatest doctors investigating one of their own, for a murder hidden in a building full of cadavers--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."--Dust jacket.
Alternative Title
Blood and ivy
Subjects
Genre/Form
  • Case studies.
  • History.
  • Nonfiction.
  • True crime stories.
Bibliography (note)
  • Includes bibliographical references (pgs. 325-335) and index.
Contents
I: Scenes of the crime. The way into Harvard ; On pins and crowbars ; The skeleton box ; The great world goes clanging on -- II: The victim. A bad business ; A gentleman unknown ; The yellow envelope ; Some aberration of mind -- III: The suspect. Thanksgiving by the fire ; The final reward ; Wickedness takes eleven ; "I shal be kiled" -- IV: The accused. Pistols drawn ; A ruined man ; Old Grimes is dead ; A lifetime of uprightness -- V: The trial. In the dead house ; Good men and true ; The catalog of bones ; Mesmeric revelation -- VI: The verdict. Twelve men in Massachusetts ; Law manufactured for the occasion ; A man in error ; Closing hours.
Call Number
JFE 18-8813
ISBN
  • 9780393245165
  • 0393245160
LCCN
  • 2017057354
  • 40028384951
OCLC
1005106031
Author
Collins, Paul, 1969- author.
Title
Blood & ivy : the 1849 murder that scandalized Harvard / Paul Collins.
Publisher
New York, N.Y. : W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., [2018]
Copyright Date
©2018
Edition
First edition.
Type of Content
text
Type of Medium
unmediated
Type of Carrier
volume
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pgs. 325-335) and index.
Chronological Term
1800-1899
Other Standard Identifier
40028384951
Research Call Number
JFE 18-8813
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