Mondo Lizzie Borden

I could spend hours on this list on Lizzie’s Place. Who knew there were so many famous Lizzie’s out there? The main page for the site is here.

Don’t forget to go all the way down the main page and listen to Gus Van and Joe Schenck perform “Strut, Miss Lizzie” from the Ziegfeld Follies of 1921, take the Lizzie Quiz, and click on tons of links to interesting Lizzie-lore. What a hoot!

Cara Robertson, the lawyer/scholar who played Emma Borden in the Stanford University reenactment of the trial, has a book on the Borden case due out soon. The Trial of Lizzie Borden is under contract with Random House and an interview with Robertson appears in the Spring/Summer 2006 issue of “News of the National Humanities Center.”

The article is titled “CSI: Fall River Cara Robertson on Lizzie Borden and Other Crimes” and is long enough to give you some insight into Robertson’s commitment to excellence in scholarship. She is currently in her second year as a National Humanities fellow and is also hard at work on a book about the infamous Elizabeth Canning.

Like the Borden case, Robertson notes, the Canning Affair allowed society—and the media—to test competing narratives in public as they were being contested in a courtroom. Just as Borden’s indictment brought into question prevailing notions of female criminality, Canning’s story coincided with a seismic shift in European culture from belief to knowledge. As intellectuals debated questions of epistemology and evidence, Fielding was attempting to parse truth from fiction by day while creating his own fictional world— one in which he was the sole arbiter of truth—by night.

You can download a PDF of the complete interview here. Thanks to “intrepid reporter” for this find.

From the New York Times, May 14, 1893.

There is a very cool site that collects crime blog entries and aggregates them for you in one place. It is called Crime Blog. I am going to have to read this one daily. Lots of content and easily arranged. I see you can subscribe to an RSS feed there as well.

Many thanks to “intrepid reporter” for this extra special link.

If you don’t have a personal copy and want to watch the entire Legend of Lizzie Borden, starring Elizabeth Montgomery, online, you are in luck—if you don’t mind watching it in 2 minute spurts!

Postbus has kindly posted the clips on YouTube.com. You can subscribe to his channel and watch the film in installments, as he releases it. As of today, he is up to segment #9. At this rate you will be able to see the entire film by Christmas.

This made-for-TV film has not been released on DVD. If you see any copies out there (like on eBay), they are bootlegs. Just like the YouTube version, I suppose.

I love the Internet!

Thanks to “intrepid reporter” for this heads up.

My all time favorite Lizzie Borden quote came about when she was asked this at the Inquest: “Where was your sister Emma that day?” To which Lizzie Borden replied, apparently with a straight face, “What day?”

“Intrepid Reporter” found a site that has about four dozen Lizzie Borden quotes on it. It is called Brainy Quote. Problem is, they are not all correct. Can you spot the incorrect ones without looking them up in the Inquest Testimony?

Here are a few random quotes from the site.

I don’t know what I have said. I have answered so many questions and I am so confused I don’t know one thing from another. I am telling you just as nearly as I know.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

Maggie went out of doors to wash the windows and father came out into the kitchen and said he did not know whether he would go down to the post office or not. And then I sprinkled some handkerchiefs to iron.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

My door was open part of the time, and part of the time I tried to get a nap and their voices annoyed me, and I closed it. I kept it open in summer more or less, and closed in winter.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

Oh, Mrs. Churchill, do come over, someone has killed father.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

I don’t know what your name is.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

I don’t know whether Mrs. Borden is out or in; I wish you would see if she is in her room.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

I don’t think I felt very sick in the morningm only-Yes, I don’t know but I did feel better. As I say, I don’t know whether I ate any breakfast or not, or whether I ate a cookie.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

I had no occasion for an apron on that morning.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

I had taken the secretaryship and treasurer of our C.E. society, had the charge, and the roll call was the first Sunday in August, and I felt I must be there and attend to that part of the business.
Lizzie Andrew Borden

I have been away a great deal in the daytime, occasionally at night.
Lizzie Andrew Borden