The Trials of Maria Barbella: The True Story of a 19th-Century Crime of Passion

This story about a headline-making case in Victorian-era New York City is especially engaging because the author, Idanna Pucci, is the great-granddaughter of Cora Slocomb, the American-born Italian aristocrat whose money and passionate advocacy saved the life of poor Italian immigrant Maria Barbella. Pucci, who has previously written about Balinese mythology, was attracted to the case when she found a privately printed booklet about it in an antique family chest. This book not only tells a suspenseful tale of murder and its aftermath, but skillfully illuminates several topics of historical interest: the culture clash between Italian immigrants and turn-of-the-century American society, the history of public opinion on the death penalty, old New York penal institutions such as "The Tombs" and Sing-Sing, the activist role of the early feminist elite such as Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the class of educated women for whom social justice was a sacred vocation.