Forty whacks
Subtitle: new evidence in the life and legend of Lizzie Borden
By: David Kent ; with foreword by Robert A. Flynn.
Publisher: Yankee Books; Distributed in the book trade by St. Martin's Press
Published: 1992
Place of publication: Emmaus, Pa; [New York]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 231
Subjects: Borden, Lizzie, 1860-1927.; Murder -- Massachusetts -- Fall River -- Case studies.
Description: Lizzie Borden is a name that has lived in infamy. Wasn't this the ghoulish daughter who "took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks" and then "gave her father forty-one"? Most people know the rhyme. What they don't know are the particulars of how Lizzie was hounded by prosecutors, pursued by the press, finally acquitted - yet always presumed guilty. For answers to these and many other questions about the unsolved mystery of Lizzie Borden, author David Kent turned to Robert A. Flynn, a native of Fall River, Massachusetts. As they delved deeper into the mystery, Kent and Flynn (author of the foreword) gained complete access to voluminous material - including newly acquired papers and never-before-published photographs that are now part of this book.

With evidence gleaned from court records and murder-scene photographs, David Kent reopened the case that shook the sleepy town of Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1892. From essential details that were white-washed in the trial, a new picture of Lizzie Borden emerges, far different from the blood-stained portrait of legend. A true-crime mystery that reads like fiction, Forty Whacks is the vivid, compelling story of this woman's defense in the merciless courtroom of public opinion.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 226-231).