SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective)
Document Type
Article
Abstract
The murders of Phoebe Hogg and her toddler daughter by Mary Eleanor Piercey, the lover of Phoebe’s husband, in London in 1892 subverted the usual Victorian press conventions surrounding a female killer. Whereas such women were commonly depicted as monsters, representing ‘the other’ and portrayed as plain, even masculine, creatures, Mary Eleanor was presented in romanticised terms, her good looks contrasted with the more masculine looks of her female victim. This article looks at how, and why, the coverage of this murderess differed, asks whether this case should make us re-evaluate how cases involving female killers were covered by the newspapers, and assesses whether press coverage of this particular case reflected a change in the nature of British journalism from a desire to educate readers, to an increasing desire to entertain them.
Publication Date
2018-01-01
Publication Title
SOLON Law, Crime and History
Volume
8
Issue
1
First Page
5
Last Page
20
ISSN
2045-9238
Deposit Date
June 2016
Embargo Period
2024-10-29
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Darby, Nell
(2018)
"The Hampstead Murder: Subversion in Press Portrayals of a Murderess,"
SOLON Law, Crime and History (previously SOLON Crimes and Misdemeanours: Deviance and the Law in Historical Perspective): Vol. 8:
Iss.
1, Article 6.
Available at:
https://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/solon/vol8/iss1/6