The Sad Case of Mrs. Kate Southern! The Beautiful, Virtuous Georgia Wife, Who, Being Maddened to Insanity by the Outrageous Taunts of a Bad Woman who Had Enticed Her Husband Away, Killed Her...

Philadelphia: Old Franklin Publishing House, 1878.

Softcover. Fair. 60 pp, with 4 wood-engraved plates. Original pictorial wrappers. Cheaply printed on acidic paper that is now browned and brittle, badly chipped along edges, rear wrapper detached. A fair copy only. Often cited as fiction (see Wright Vol. 3, 4735, for example), this sensationalized account does contain invented dialogue, but the crime and trial it describes were quite real and captivated the southern Georgia community in which they occurred. Kate Southern was sentenced to death for the murder by stabbing of a woman rumored to have been having an affair with her husband. Preganant at the time of the crime, Kate was portrayed in the newspapers (and in this pamphlet) as a virtuous woman defending her home and family. As sociologist David Baker explains, "Her case sparked debate throughout the South about the treatment of women in the criminal justice system. After her sentencing there was public outcry that if a man had committed the same crime he would probably have been acquitted under the theory that it was justifiable homicide to kill the seducer of an adulterous wife. Kate Southern's death sentence was eventually commuted to 10 years imprisonment, but the governor later pardoned Kate under pressure from the state's legislature" (Women and Capital Punishment in the United States, 2016). McDade 894.

Item #21351

Price: $300.00