'COME AT ONCE - ANNIE IS DYING'

Hardback. 1st edn. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED TO FORMER DET. CHIEF SUPT. LEONARD 'NIPPER' READ. In 1887, just one year before Jack the Ripper brought terror to the streets of London's East End, Edith Annie Berry, a child of 10, died in mysterious circumstances within the grim forbidding walls of the Oldham Union Workhouse. The Oldham Poisoning Case, as it came to be known, was destined to become one of the most unique and controversial in the annals of British criminal history, and would prove to be every bit as thrilling as the Ripper saga before the final dramatic act was played out on the scaffold at Walton Gaol, Liverpool. Holding centre stage was the arrested Elizabeth Berry, a most unusual woman possessing a mind and character of great complexity. Mrs. Berry maintained her innocence to the very end. Could she have been the victim of a remarkable web of circumstantial evidence, or was she in fact the monster she was ultimately made out to be, a woman capable of systematically murdering her own child, her mother and possibly two other members of her immediate family. Illus., Select Bibliog. and Index. 299pp. 8vo. h/back. From the library of former Det. Chief Supt. Leonard 'Nipper' Read. PRESENTATION COPY INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR TO 'Nipper' Read. Includes loosely inserted HANDWRITTEN LETTER FROM THE AUTHOR TO 'NIPPER'. Scarce. F. in Nr. F. dw. A fairly heavy book which may require additional postage if shipped overseas.