Penning Poison

A well-researched and wide-ranging survey of a fascinating and murky area in the history of letters. * Miranda Seymour, Financial Times * Gripping...full of one engaging story after another * Jonathan Self, Country Life * Emily Cockayne, one of the leading social historians of our times, has written a truly original history of anonymous letter writing. With her unparalleled skills of exploration and empathy, she has provided a brilliant and beautifully written account of neglected phenomenon in all its social complexity. * Emma Griffin, President of the Royal Historical Society * As Emily Cockayne shows in this fascinating history, harassment by anonymous letters has often escalated into criminal proceedings in Britain. Cockayne has an eye for the telling details of everyday life, and her sensitivity to motive and human frailty allows her to see things that the detectives who investigated these cases in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries missed. * Christopher Hilliard, author of The Littlehampton Libels: A Miscarriage of Justice and a Mystery about Words in 1920s England * This book is a great fit for libraries and for private readers who have an interest in such true crime mysteries. * Anna Faktorovich, Pennsylvania Literary Journal * A diligent and fascinating study of a pervasive social phenomenon. * Stephen Bates, Literary Review * [A] fascinating account, not just of poison pen letters themselves, but also of the evolution of the necessary postal networks, technology, forensics and policing. Whether you find the realisation refreshing or dispiriting, it appears that the anxieties of the internet age are merely today's version of a longstanding, spiteful tradition. * Henrietta McKervey, Irish Independent * Emily Cockayne has done a tremendous job in charting [poison pen letters]...the examples contained within are very real, and show that anyone who receives a nameless note from out of the blue is bound to find it at the very least unsettling, if not chillingly sinister. * Alex Johnson, The Idler * Wonderful...If the subject of her book is poison, then Cockayne's treatment of it is the antidote. * Sophie Nicholls, The Critic * [A] revealing history of poison pen letters. * New Statesman * Emily Cockayne takes the reader through the history of the anonymous letter writing from 1760 to 1939, romping through gossip, tip-offs, threats, obscenity, libels and more. They are by turn frightening, scandalous and bizarre, and make for a thrilling read as Cockayne writes with an academic's attention to detail and a novelist's lightness of touch. * Ettie Neil-Gallacher, The Field * An entertaining and original social history of Britain. * Tony Barber, Financial Times * Positively bulging with evidence. * Dennis Duncan, Washington Post * Emily Cockayne, one of the leading social historians of our times, has written a truly original history of anonymous letter writing. With her unparalleled skills of exploration and empathy, she has provided a brilliant and beautifully written account of neglected phenomenon in all its social complexity. * Emma Griffin, LitHub * Fascinating but also subtly affecting ... Penning Poison reveals, there is nothing new under the sun-or between the lines. * Anna Mundow, Wall Street Journal * A lively survey of the practice of sending anonymous letters ... By examining individual cases - the how, when, where and, most important, why - Cockayne has produced something thought-provoking and humane. The opposite of a poison-pen letter, really. * Sadie Stein, New York Times * Penning Poison is a painstaking, energetic history. * Min Wild, Times Literary Supplement *