*Infanticide in Tudor and Stuart England* explores one of society’s darkest crimes using archival sources and discussing its representation in the drama, pamphlets and broadside ballads of the early modern period. It takes the reader on a journey through the streets and taverns where street literature was hawked, to the playhouses where the crime was dramatized, and the courts where it was tried and punished. Using a regional microstudy of coroners’ inquests and churchwardens’ presentments, coupled with theories of liminality, marginality and rites of passage, it reveals complex and contradictory attitudes to infants, women and the crime. As well as considering unwed women, the most common perpetrators of infanticide, the study shows that married women, men and the local community were also culpable, and the many reasons for this. Infanticide in Tudor and Stuart England is set in its European and historical contexts, revealing surprising continuities across time.

Josephine Billingham has a PhD in English Literature from UCL. She is an independent scholar with particular interest in liminality, infant death, literature in its historical context, and the interplay between historical and literary sources.

EpigramAuthor's notesList of IllustrationsChapter 1: Losses, Lacunae and LiminalityChapter 2: European and Medieval Contexts of InfanticideChapter 3: The liminal child and motherChapter 4: Love, Law and LiminalityChapter 5: Constructing Outsiders, Constructing KillersChapter 6: Not the Usual Suspects: Communities and AccomplicesChapter 7: Not the Usual Suspects: Married WomenChapter 8: Not the Usual Suspects: MenChapter 9: Interlude: Infanticide 1700-1950Chapter 10: Epilogue: Echoes of the PastAppendix 1: The 1624 Infanticide ActAppendix 2: Note on Sussex Coroners' inquestsAppendix 3: Sussex Cases of Violent, Unnatural, Unexplained Infant Death 1547-1686: Complete list of cases from archival and other sourcesAppendix 4: Sussex Infant Deaths Involving WaterAppendix 5: Sussex Infant Deaths Involving ThrowingAppendix 6: Sussex Infant Deaths Involving Bloodshed or Extreme ViolenceAppendix 7: Sussex Infant Deaths Showing Direct Involvement of MenIndex