Blood & Ivy: The 1849 Murder That Scandalized Harvard

On November 23rd, 1849, Dr. George Parkman, a wealthy Brahmin who owned a significant portion of Boston's West End, disappeared. He was last seen visiting his alma mater, Harvard Medical School. Despite a thorough search, police were unable to locate him, and rumors circulated that he had fled to sea or hidden in Manhattan. However, a Harvard janitor held a darker suspicion: that their ruthless benefactor had never left the Medical School building alive. His discoveries in a chemistry professor's laboratory led to the landmark trial of The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. John White Webster, a case filled with red herrings, grave robbery, and dismemberment. Blood & Ivy by Paul Collins brings nineteenth-century Boston to life, exploring the fatal entanglement of new science and old money in this groundbreaking murder mystery.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 368 pages
Publication date: 09 July 2019
Publisher: WW Norton & Co

On November 23rd, 1849, in the heart of Boston, one of the city's wealthiest men mysteriously disappeared. Dr. George Parkman, a Brahmin who owned a significant portion of Boston's West End, was last seen that afternoon visiting his alma mater, Harvard Medical School. The police conducted a thorough search of city tenements and the harbor, following leads that suggested Dr. Parkman had either fled to sea or taken refuge in Manhattan. However, one Harvard janitor harbored a much darker suspicion: that their ruthless benefactor had never left the Medical School building alive.

His astonishing discoveries in a chemistry professor's laboratory would engulf America in one of its most infamous trials: The Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. John White Webster. A perplexing case of red herrings, grave robbery, and dismemberment, it became a landmark case in the use of medical forensics and the interpretation of reasonable doubt. Paul Collins vividly brings nineteenth-century Boston to life, interweaving newspaper accounts, letters, journals, court transcripts, and memoirs from this groundbreaking case. Rich in characters and evocative in atmosphere, Blood & Ivy explores the fatal entanglement of new science and old money in one of America's greatest murder mysteries.

Weight: 296g
Dimension: 138 x 209 x 32 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780393357325