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The Murder of Helen Jewett

The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York

by Patricia Cline Cohen

An account of a murder that took place in New York in 1836. Helen Jewett was a poor farmgirl from Maine who moved to Manhattan and, as a prostitute, eventually became one of the wealthiest women in town. Richard Robinson, one of her many lovers, was charged with her murder, and the ensuing trial was one of the most sensational of the 19th century. A "New York Times" Notable Book for 1998.

Available editions of The Murder of Helen Jewett

	9780679740759, Paperback, Vintage Books, 1999 $6.99 (Very Good +) Other copies of 9780679740759

	9780679412915, Hardcover, Random House Inc, 1998 $3.75 (Good) Other copies of 9780679412915

Publisher Notes

In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett. From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York Citys elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness.But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into Americas burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business societys seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators.With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared from view. Through the Erie Canal, down the Ohio and the Mississippi, and by way of New Orleans, he reached the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder. Her stunning portrayals of Helen Jewett, Robinson, and their raffish, colorful nineteenth-century world make vivid a frenetic city life and sexual morality whose complexities, contradictions, and concerns resonate with those of our own time.

Media Reviews

"She has done a great deal of research, seems to have done it well, and simply cannot bear to let go of any of it; this is a common scholar's and writer's ailment, for which she must be forgiven, but the book would be better at a hundred pages shorter. More troubling is that, adhering to current academic fashion, Cohen cannot let the tale stand on its own but insists on reading into it morals and judgments that reflect our own times and temper far more than they do Helen Jewett's....It is a pity that Cohen succumbs to these temptations, for in most other respects she has carried out her task with skill and intelligence."

Excerpt

However Helen was killed, it was accomplished quickly, deliberately, efficiently. There was no sign of overkill, the savage multiple blows or mutilation of extreme rage or lust killing. And the murder was premeditated....In a final act of destructive rationality, the killer lighted the bedside candle, probably from the fireplace embers, and set it in the bed, intending to ignite his victim, her room, indeed the entire brothel, in order to conceal his crime.

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