•  
  •  
 

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

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Share

COinS