Everyone loves a good mystery. And the mysteries abound in Amy Gilman Srebnick's absorbing new work....With this book, the mysterious death of Mary Rogers should take its place beside other crimes that have shocked Americans into action, or at least into deep reflection about our society
Kitty Genovese and Nicole Brown Simpson are only the tip of the iceberg.New ... Read moreYork Law Journal
With its combination of romance, sex, and violence, Rogers's story captured the allure and danger of urban life and, Srebnick argues, introduced previously unspeakable acts into public discourse.
Time Out New York
In a mesmerizing, superb study, intriguingly illustrated with period engravings and woodcuts,...Srebnick uses the Rogers saga to throw a floodlight on sexuality in antebellum America, women's history, urban mass culture, the rise of the popular press, and the birth of detective fiction.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Highly recommended for all readers.
Library Journal
A wonderfully astute and complex investigation of gender, class, and cultural representation in the urban world of antebellum America.
Eric Sundquist, Department of English, UCLA
The Mysterious Death of Mary Rogers is immensely readable, fluently written, well-paced, and intrinsically of great value. It is vivid and highly evocative of the urban culture
persons, events, buildings and streets, print culture, complex moral codes, etc.it treats; and it is particularly effective in its linkage of the mysteries of the city with the mysteries of female sexuality in this period.Karen Halttunen, Professor of History, University of California, Davis
Srebnick covers the much-traversed ground regarding the details surrounging Rogers's life and death. Nevertheless, the author postulates a provocative new theory regarding the subject's personal history...
The Historian
Excellent classroom text; students are engrossed by the story which raises key issues about urbanized class formation and gender roles.
Kathleen Kennedy, Western Washington University
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