PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

The Suitcase Baby

The heartbreaking true story of a shocking crime in 1920s Sydney

Tanya Bretherton

$34.99

Paperback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Hachette Australia
30 January 2018
In Sydney in the 1920s, babies were turning up in the harbour, on trains, and in public places. These babies, all murdered, mostly by their mothers, were a devastating symptom of changing morals and a growing metropolis. One of these babies turned up on a harbour beach - and from there, an extraordinary story unfolded.

True history that is both shocking and too real, this unforgettable tale moves at the pace of a great crime novel.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, 17 November 1923, a suitcase was found washed up on the shore of a small beach in the Sydney suburb of Mosman. What it contained - and why - would prove to be explosive.

The murdered baby in the suitcase was one of many dead infants who were turning up in the harbour, on trains and elsewhere. These innocent victims were a devastating symptom of the clash between public morality, private passion and unrelenting poverty in a fast-growing metropolis.

Police tracked down Sarah Boyd, the mother of the suitcase baby, and the complex story and subsequent murder trial of Sarah and her friend Jean Olliver became a media sensation. Sociologist Tanya Bretherton masterfully tells the engrossing and moving story of the crime that put Sarah and her baby at the centre of a social tragedy that still resonates through the decades.

By:  
Imprint:   Hachette Australia
Country of Publication:   Australia
Dimensions:   Height: 158mm,  Width: 236mm,  Spine: 24mm
Weight:   426g
ISBN:   9780733639227
ISBN 10:   0733639224
Series:   The Australian Crime Vault
Pages:   336
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Tanya Bretherton has a Ph D in sociology with special interests in narrative life history and social history. She has published in the academic and public sphere for twenty years, and worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Sydney for fifteen years. Dr Bretherton's specialty is converting detailed research into thought-provoking works which are accessible to a general readership. Her book Safety in Numbers, on nursing in modern hospitals, was published by Cornell University Press. The book was well received by the general public and the research community and became a non-fiction best seller on Amazon. She has also worked as a columnist, and had an ongoing partnership with national workplace magazine The Intelligence Report for over a decade. Currently she works as a freelance researcher and writer. Throughout 2016 she conducted a series of qualitative studies with families to compile a compendium of stories about life below the poverty line in Australia. Her clients include Mission Australia, The Smith Family and Adopt Change. Her publication 'Journeys to Permanency' has just been launched by the NSW government and tells real stories of foster children and adoption in modern Australia.

Reviews for The Suitcase Baby: The heartbreaking true story of a shocking crime in 1920s Sydney

Bretherton's unflinching fact-finding is what makes this book throb. * Australian Women's Weekly *


See Also