LB and the American Realists

This is the text of an unpublished talk given at a symposium celebrating Jack Beeson’s opera Lizzie Borden, presented during the1996 season of Glimmerglass Opera, Cooperstown, New York.

It is definitely worth reading, but it does raise a few questions:
Was Lizzie’s love of animals “obsessive”?
Did Emma dress in black the rest of her life?

And there is a particularly troubling paragraph near the end:

Perhaps this is why the true-life story of Lizzie Borden haunts us today.If guilty, she dared the most outrageous rebellion possible; if innocent, her actions after the trial made the townspeople suspect she wasn’t very much grief-stricken.For example, as is well known, she gave a large party to celebrate her freedom; and with her now inherited wealth she bought a new house that she snobbishly called “Maplecroft” and staffed with servants.She re-christened herself Lisabeth and took to buying art and fancy cars.Now that she had money she could travel to Boston and New York, where she befriended people of the stage, throwing parties for them and financing their stays at Maplecroft.

Worth reading, nonetheless, for its learned discussion of 19th Century literature.