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Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne
by Kate Winkler Dawson
Acclaimed journalist, podcaster, and true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson tells the true story of the scandalous murder investigation that became the inspiration for both Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and the first true-crime book published in America.
On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah's death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River. The murder divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter—but the reverend was not convicted, and questions linger to this day about what really led to Sarah Cornell's death. Until now.
In The Sinners All Bow, acclaimed true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to nineteenth-century small-town America, emboldened to finish the work Williams started nearly two centuries before. Using modern investigative advancements—including "forensic knot analysis" and criminal profiling (which was invented fifty-five years later with Jack the Ripper)—Dawson fills in the gaps of Williams's research to find the truth and bring justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to our past as well as our present, anchored by three women who subverted the script they were given.
"Breakneck pacing, a novelist's gift for scene-setting, and an edifying analysis of the overlap between the Cornell case and Hawthorne's novel make this a home run. Readers will be rapt." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A fascinating approach to the story of Sarah Cornell, the woman whose death is said to have inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to create Hester Prynne in his 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter...Required reading for true-crime aficionados and those fascinated by puritanical New England." —Kirkus Reviews
"Through skepticism, attention to detail, and inventive framing, Dawson offers another compelling entry into the genre of historical true crime." —Booklist
"A fascinating re-examining of a true-crime mystery that continues to unfold." —Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Let's Pretend This Never Happened
"The Sinners All Bow is an utterly original reinvention of the true-crime genre, deconstructing a celebrated and historical murder-mystery while also catapulting the reader through a riveting and unpredictable tale." —Michael Finkel, New York Times bestselling author of The Art Thief and The Stranger in the Woods
"Time and space collapse as Kate Winkler Dawson brings the rigor and methods of today's forensic investigators to bear on a two-centuries-old murder case. Told with precision and compassion, this brilliant reinvestigation explodes myths and exposes prejudices to get to the bottom of a heinous crime and restore the victim's sullied reputation. A masterclass on researching and writing true crime." —Dean Jobb, author of A Gentleman and a Thief and The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream
This information about The Sinners All Bow was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kate Winkler Dawson is a seasoned documentary producer and podcaster whose hit podcasts Tenfold More Wicked, Wicked Words, and Buried Bones appear on the Exactly Right network. She is the author of Death in the Air, American Sherlock, and All That Is Wicked, and is a professor of journalism at The University of Texas at Austin.
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