The notorious Frances Thwaites : the adventurous life of Frances Thwaites Australia's most notorious female serial killer 1867-1894

The Resource The notorious Frances Thwaites : the adventurous life of Frances Thwaites Australia's most notorious female serial killer 1867-1894
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The notorious Frances Thwaites : the adventurous life of Frances Thwaites Australia's most notorious female serial killer 1867-1894
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the adventurous life of Frances Thwaites Australia's most notorious female serial killer 1867-1894
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Kellinde Wrightson
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Author
Subject
Genre
Language
eng
Summary
Frances Thwaites is a beautiful, respectable, but rebellious Chelsea girl whose fall from grace began in London in 1887 when she ran away with a soldier. As punishment her father sent her to Australia. She was nineteen and alone in a harsh colony where she worked as a servant and dressmaker before ending up on the streets and turning to the farming/minding of unwanted babies. When a baby in her care died she was tried for murder on the flimsiest of evidence, found guilty and hanged. She was 27 and the mother of two daughters who were adopted out, one to a wealthy family and the other to a poor couple. Their stories are later told in books 2 and 3 of The Baby Farmer trilogy. This fast-paced novel captures the drama and hardship of early colonial life, especially for a young, destitute woman, who turned to petty theft and later the minding of unwanted babies to survive. The story is also told through Dickensian portraits of real characters from history - like the detestable and corrupt Det. Nixon who pursued Frances to rescue his career, the bitter Justice Holroyd who unfairly convicted Frances, and Jones the Hangman of Melbourne Gaol who slit his own throat rather than kill the hapless Frances
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Cataloging source
ANL
Illustrations
  • illustrations
  • portraits
  • facsimiles
Index
no index present
Literary form
fiction
Series statement
Baby farmer trilogy
Series volume
1

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