The Trials of Laura Fair
Sex, Murder, and Insanity in the Victorian West
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The Trials of Laura Fair
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Narrated by:
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Pam Ward
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By:
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Carole Haber
About this listen
On November 3, 1870, on a San Francisco ferry, Laura Fair shot a bullet into the heart of her married lover, A. P. Crittenden. Throughout her two murder trials, Fair's lawyers, supported by expert testimony from physicians, claimed that the shooting was the result of temporary insanity caused by a severely painful menstrual cycle. The first jury disregarded such testimony, choosing instead to focus on Fair's disreputable character. In the second trial, however, an effective defense built on contemporary medical beliefs and gendered stereotypes led to a verdict that shocked Americans across the country.
In this rousing history, Carole Haber probes changing ideas about morality and immorality, masculinity and femininity, love and marriage, health and disease, and mental illness to show that all these concepts were reinvented in the Victorian West.
Haber's book examines the era's most controversial issues, including suffrage, the gendered courts, women's physiology, and free love. This notorious story enriches our understanding of Victorian society, opening the door to a discussion about the ways in which reputation, especially female reputation, is shaped.
©2013 Carole Haber (P)2013 Blackstone Audio, Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 182
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 167
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Story4 out of 5 stars 166
In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just 16 years old, had recently moved to the city. White was 47. As the foremost architect of his day, he was a celebrity. She told no one that White raped her that night until, several years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would later become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance in Madison Square Garden.
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1 out of 5 stars
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"The Girl" is barely in this book
- By Polly L. Mccall on 07-12-18
By: Simon Baatz
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The Dreyfus Affair
- The Scandal That Tore France in Two
- By: Piers Paul Read
- Narrated by: David Pevsner
- Length: 16 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 96
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 90
On October 13, 1894, Captain Dreyfus was summoned by the General de Boisdeffre to the Ministry of War. Despite minimal evidence against him he was placed under arrest for the crime of high treason. Not long afterward Dreyfus was incarcerated on Devil's Island. But how did an innocent man come to be convicted? And why was he kept locked up for so long? The Dreyfus Affair uniquely combines a fast-moving mystery story with a snapshot of France at a moment of great social flux and cultural richness.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Gripping look at an important moment in history
- By W. Brian Hall on 10-27-13
By: Piers Paul Read
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The Great Dissent
- How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind and Changed the History of Free Speech in America
- By: Thomas Healy
- Narrated by: Danny Campbell
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 262
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 233
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 234
Free speech as we know it comes less from the First Amendment than from a most unexpected source: Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lifelong skeptic, he disdained all individual rights, including the right to express one's political views. But in 1919, it was Holmes who wrote a dissenting opinion that would become the canonical affirmation of free speech in the United States.
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5 out of 5 stars
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How a 78 year old man can learn & change his mind
- By Jean on 09-23-13
By: Thomas Healy
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Bringing Down the Colonel
- A Sex Scandal of the Gilded Age, and the "Powerless" Woman Who Took On Washington
- By: Patricia Miller
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 13 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 32
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
In Bringing Down the Colonel, journalist Patricia Miller tells the story of Madeline Pollard, an unlikely 19th-century women’s rights crusader. After an affair with a prominent politician left her “ruined”, Pollard brought the man - and the hypocrisy of America’s control of women’s sexuality - to trial. And, surprisingly, she won.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stay with it. It is amazing.
- By Living Downeast on 09-29-19
By: Patricia Miller
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Tough Cases
- Judges Tell the Stories of Some of the Hardest Decisions They've Ever Made
- By: Russell F. Canan - editor, Gregory E. Mize - editor, Frederick H. Weisberg - editor
- Narrated by: Isabel Keating, Richard Ferrone
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 34
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 30
In Tough Cases, judges from different kinds of courts in different parts of the country write about the case that proved most difficult for them to decide. Some of these cases received international attention: the Elián González case in which Judge Jennifer Bailey had to decide whether to return a seven-year-old boy to his father in Cuba after his mother drowned trying to bring the child to the United States, or the Terri Schiavo case in which Judge George Greer had to decide whether to withdraw life support from a woman in a vegetative state over the wishes of her parents.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Puts being a judge in perspective
- By David Bigelow Stouffer on 01-14-20
By: Russell F. Canan - editor, and others
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Emmett Till
- The Murder That Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement
- By: Devery S. Anderson
- Narrated by: Brandon Church
- Length: 21 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 105
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 92
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Story5 out of 5 stars 93
Emmett Till offers the first truly comprehensive account of the 1955 murder and its aftermath. It tells the story of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old African American boy from Chicago brutally lynched for a harmless flirtation at a country store in the Mississippi Delta. His death and the acquittal of his killers by an all-white jury set off a firestorm of protests that reverberated all over the world and spurred on the civil rights movement.
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5 out of 5 stars
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An important story narrated with power and warmth
- By R. Nance on 10-04-16
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The Poison Patriarch
- How the Betrayals of Joseph P. Kennedy Caused the Assassination of JFK
- By: Mark Shaw
- Narrated by: Pat Kiernan
- Length: 7 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 305
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 272
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Story4 out of 5 stars 270
Focusing for the first time on why attorney general Robert F. Kennedy wasn’t killed in 1963 instead of on why President John F. Kennedy was, Mark Shaw offers a stunning and provocative assassination theory that leads directly to the family patriarch, Joseph P. Kennedy. Mining fresh information and more than 40 new interviews, Shaw weaves a spellbinding narrative involving Mafia don Carlos Marcello; Jack Ruby (Lee Harvey Oswald’s killer); Ruby’s attorney, Melvin Belli; and, ultimately, the Kennedy brothers and their father.
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1 out of 5 stars
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He should stick to writing briefs
- By Karenanne Brown on 03-28-18
By: Mark Shaw
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On the Courthouse Lawn
- Revised Edition
- By: Sherrilyn Ifill, Bryan Stevenson - foreword
- Narrated by: LisaGay Hamilton
- Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 21
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Story5 out of 5 stars 21
Nearly 5,000 black Americans were lynched between 1890 and 1960. Over 40 years later, Sherrilyn Ifill examines the numerous ways that this racial trauma still resounds across the United States. While the lynchings and their immediate aftermath were devastating, the little-known contemporary consequences, such as the marginalization of political and economic development for black Americans, are equally pernicious. A landmark book, On the Courthouse Lawn is a much-needed and urgent road map for communities finally confronting lynching's long shadow.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Born in Salisbury
- By rondcorbinAmazon Customer on 01-07-20
By: Sherrilyn Ifill, and others
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Fallen Founder
- The Life of Aaron Burr
- By: Nancy Isenberg
- Narrated by: Scott Brick
- Length: 19 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 403
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 327
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 325
Generations have been told that Aaron Burr was a betrayer: of Alexander Hamilton, of his country, of those who had nobler ideas. But that version has been shaped by historians and writers from the 18th century on who were blinded by tabloid reports and propaganda created by Burr's political enemies during his lifetime. It is time to discover the real Aaron Burr.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Very Burr-Centric
- By Derek on 11-11-07
By: Nancy Isenberg
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Liberty's First Crisis
- Adams, Jefferson, and the Misfits Who Saved Free Speech
- By: Charles Slack
- Narrated by: Brian Holsopple
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story5 out of 5 stars 31
When the United States government passed the Bill of Rights in 1791, its uncompromising protection of speech and of the press were unlike anything the world had ever seen before. But by 1798, the once-dazzling young republic of the United States was on the verge of collapse. Suddenly, the First Amendment, which protected harsh commentary of the weak government, no longer seemed as practical. So that July, President John Adams and the Federalists in control of Congress passed an extreme piece of legislation that made criticism of the government and its leaders a crime.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Marvelous Book....
- By Douglas on 01-07-17
By: Charles Slack
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Nigger
- The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word - with a New Introduction by the Author
- By: Randall Kennedy
- Narrated by: Langston Darby
- Length: 5 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 35
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 31
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 31
Nigger: it is arguably the most consequential social insult in American history, though, at the same time, a word that reminds us of “the ironies and dilemmas, tragedies and glories of the American experience.” In this tour de force, distinguished Harvard Law School professor Randall Kennedy - author of the highly acclaimed Race, Crime, and the Law - “put[s] a tracer on nigger”, to identify how it has been used and by whom, while analyzing the controversies to which it has given rise.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Why we have the thesaurus…
- By John H on 07-12-23
By: Randall Kennedy
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Fight Back and Win
- My 30-Year Fight Against Injustice and How You Can Win Your Own Battles
- By: Gloria Allred
- Narrated by: Gloria Allred
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Fearless lawyer, feminist, activist, television and radio commentator, warrior, advocate, and winner, Gloria Allred is all of these things and more. Voted by her peers as one of the best lawyers in America, and described by Time as "one of the nation's most effective advocates of family rights and feminist causes", Allred has devoted her career to fighting for civil rights across boundaries of gender, race, age, sexual orientation, and social class.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing book, amazing woman.
- By Hope on 04-05-12
By: Gloria Allred
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The Nuremberg Trial
- By: John Tusa, Ann Tusa
- Narrated by: Ralph Cosham
- Length: 25 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,416
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,260
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,253
Here is a gripping account of the major postwar trial of the Nazi hierarchy in World War II. The Nuremberg Trial brilliantly recreates the trial proceedings and offers a reasoned, often profound examination of the processes that created international law. From the whimpering of Kaltenbrunner and Ribbentrop on the stand to the icy coolness of Goering, each participant is vividly drawn.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Detailed and rewarding listen for history buffs
- By Ronnie on 08-25-17
By: John Tusa, and others
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The Devil in the Shape of a Woman
- Witchcraft in Colonial New England
- By: Carol F. Karlsen
- Narrated by: Jo Anna Perrin
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 53
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 52
Author Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in 17th-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society and attempts to answer the question why some women were vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Vital scholarship beautifully narrated.
- By Audrey on 10-13-19
By: Carol F. Karlsen
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Gideon's Trumpet
- How One Man, a Poor Prisoner, Took His Case to the Supreme Court - and Changed the Law of the United States
- By: Anthony Lewis
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 70
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 62
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Story5 out of 5 stars 63
A history of the landmark case of Clarence Earl Gideon's fight for the right to legal counsel.
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5 out of 5 stars
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best book on the subject
- By J.B. Price on 06-12-18
By: Anthony Lewis
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The Devil's Gentleman
- Privilege, Poison, and the Trial That Ushered in the Twentieth Century
- By: Harold Schechter
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 15 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 194
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 178
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Story4 out of 5 stars 176
The wayward son of a revered Civil War general, Roland Molineux enjoyed good looks, status, and fortune - hardly the qualities of a prime suspect in a series of shocking, merciless cyanide killings. Molineux's subsequent indictment for murder led to two explosive trials and a sex-infused scandal that shocked the nation. Bringing to life Manhattan's Gilded Age, Schechter captures all the colors of the tumultuous legal proceedings.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Book Without an Accompanying Wiki Page Is Always A Treat
- By Carolina on 02-27-17
By: Harold Schechter