I've just begun reading "Lizzie Borden: the Hands Of Time" by Muriel Arnold. My jaw dropped when I read the following passage on pages 53 and 54:
Around 8:00p.m., City Marshall Rufus Hilliard and Mayor Coughlin visited the Borden house. The mayor asked Lizzie, "Couldn't you hear anybody killing your father with that axe, Miss Lizzie? The noise must have resembled the noise made by a person chopping meat."
Lizzie replied that she had neither heard her father being killed nor the sound of her mother's body hitting the floor, for the front hallway door had remained closed all morning. Lizzie asked if anyone in the house was suspect. The mayor replied that she was, whereupon Lizzie replied that she was ready to go right then. The mayor said no, but for them to remain in the house for several days.
Can anyone else share some really dreadfully written (or, grossly inaccurate) passage from any of the other "non-fiction" books on the Borden Case?
Appalling Patches of Prose
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stuartwsa
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Fargo
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If you read the introduction of The Hands of Time it states that the book is actually three books in one.
Book I goes all the way to page 183. Book 1 shows the different accounts that were reported in some of the Newspapers. We all know that many of the newspaper reports of the time were inaccurate.
It also mentions in book I how some of the reports were unsubstatiated.
There are some parts of Book I where several different versions of the same story are shown, as were reported in the Newspapers. This is not to spread fiction and confuse the readers, it is to show the readers the different stories that were being printed at the time.
Book I goes all the way to page 183. Book 1 shows the different accounts that were reported in some of the Newspapers. We all know that many of the newspaper reports of the time were inaccurate.
It also mentions in book I how some of the reports were unsubstatiated.
There are some parts of Book I where several different versions of the same story are shown, as were reported in the Newspapers. This is not to spread fiction and confuse the readers, it is to show the readers the different stories that were being printed at the time.
What is a Picture, but the capture of a moment in time.
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nishmat
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Hello everyone!
I'm reading "Lizzie Borden", by Karen E. Cheney. It's my first Lizziebook and I'm not impressed at all...
However, here's my favourite line:
I'm reading "Lizzie Borden", by Karen E. Cheney. It's my first Lizziebook and I'm not impressed at all...
However, here's my favourite line:
Andrew Borden, Lizzie's father, earned a questionable reputation as a tight-fisted, abstemious businessman, who, in his early career as an undertaker, cut off the legs of tall corpses to fit them into caskets.
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bobarth
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Agnes de Mille - Lizzie Borden: A Dance of Death Pg 45.
Mrs Kelley remembered all her life sitting with her maid, Mary Doolan, Bridget's back-fence confidante, behind closed shutters and the bolted and barricaded door. Her husband was away and both women were frightened. The sound of the ripe pears falling to the grass in the Bordens' yard next door caused them to start violently.
Boy those neighbors, can't hear a 200 pound woman fall, but let a few pears fall!!!!
Mrs Kelley remembered all her life sitting with her maid, Mary Doolan, Bridget's back-fence confidante, behind closed shutters and the bolted and barricaded door. Her husband was away and both women were frightened. The sound of the ripe pears falling to the grass in the Bordens' yard next door caused them to start violently.
Boy those neighbors, can't hear a 200 pound woman fall, but let a few pears fall!!!!
The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.
Mohandas Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi
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RayS
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Actually, this sounds like another "Legend of Lizzie", a claim that can't be proven (or disproven). An old story, sometimes told about other undertakers. I don't believe it.nishmat @ Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:10 am wrote:Hello everyone!
I'm reading "Lizzie Borden", by Karen E. Cheney. It's my first Lizziebook and I'm not impressed at all...
However, here's my favourite line:
Andrew Borden, Lizzie's father, earned a questionable reputation as a tight-fisted, abstemious businessman, who, in his early career as an undertaker, cut off the legs of tall corpses to fit them into caskets.
Somebody here once told about what could be done with a too-small coffin. Do we really know anything about the size of those coffins?
I believe Phillips account of Andy: he grew rich by methods that just fell within the letter of the law.
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stuartwsa
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I figured that the passage I quoted from Ms. Arnold's book could have been taken from newspaper reports. (Can you really imagine, in a city full of people that wouldn't talk about "it" after the trial, an elected public official that would be so socially inept as to say such a thing?)
My reason for posting it was twofold. First I thought it would give us all a good laugh (thanks for sharing, Nishmat and Bobbie!).
Second, it shows the dangers of paraphrasing material instead of quoting the sources directly.
My reason for posting it was twofold. First I thought it would give us all a good laugh (thanks for sharing, Nishmat and Bobbie!).
Second, it shows the dangers of paraphrasing material instead of quoting the sources directly.
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Fargo
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Yes, some of them are pretty funny alright. Fred Rosen's book "Did they really do it?" was discussed on another thread. I am trying to only mention the inaccuracies in it that have not been mentioned.
Lizzie was an avid angler she was actually cutting lead sinkers in the barn.
Hilliard knew that the killer was lurking in the crowd somewhere at the Borden's Funeral at Oak Grove.
Alice Russel was well off financialy.
When the mayor told Lizzie in the phone that she was a suspect, Bridget overheard the conversation and it sent her packing.
When the jury forman announced the not guilty verdicy Lizzie yelled in excitement then collapsed in her chair then yelled again.
Abby had abused Lizzie.
It's scary that this author is a college teacher. I didn'tb read the other stories in the book as I don't know much about them and I don't want to be introduced to them in that way. It gives me an idea rthat it might be fun to write a sort of spoof that has the story so mixed up that its funny. Althought it would be hard to top the work done here.
In "such women are deadly", the story titled "Daughter of Hatred."
Andrew while walking home picks up the broken lock outside that is glistening in the gutter.
Lizzie's laughter startled Andrew as he entered his house ( I thought Lizzie laughed before Bridget got the door open )
Andrew sat on the horsehair sofa which was by the window in the Dinning room. When they found him his feet were on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Later the sofa was in the sitting room.
The "Pleasures of murder" contains Dorothy Dunbar's Lizzie story. "Far from the old folks of home.
The borden house had three doors leading to the outside. Thre front door, the side door and the back door. The side and back door both had screens.
Lizzie wore rimless glasses at the time of the murders.
Lizzie was an avid angler she was actually cutting lead sinkers in the barn.
Hilliard knew that the killer was lurking in the crowd somewhere at the Borden's Funeral at Oak Grove.
Alice Russel was well off financialy.
When the mayor told Lizzie in the phone that she was a suspect, Bridget overheard the conversation and it sent her packing.
When the jury forman announced the not guilty verdicy Lizzie yelled in excitement then collapsed in her chair then yelled again.
Abby had abused Lizzie.
It's scary that this author is a college teacher. I didn'tb read the other stories in the book as I don't know much about them and I don't want to be introduced to them in that way. It gives me an idea rthat it might be fun to write a sort of spoof that has the story so mixed up that its funny. Althought it would be hard to top the work done here.
In "such women are deadly", the story titled "Daughter of Hatred."
Andrew while walking home picks up the broken lock outside that is glistening in the gutter.
Lizzie's laughter startled Andrew as he entered his house ( I thought Lizzie laughed before Bridget got the door open )
Andrew sat on the horsehair sofa which was by the window in the Dinning room. When they found him his feet were on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Later the sofa was in the sitting room.
The "Pleasures of murder" contains Dorothy Dunbar's Lizzie story. "Far from the old folks of home.
The borden house had three doors leading to the outside. Thre front door, the side door and the back door. The side and back door both had screens.
Lizzie wore rimless glasses at the time of the murders.
What is a Picture, but the capture of a moment in time.