Desperate Women: Infanticide, Baby Farming, and Victorian True Crime in Britain

Victorian Britain is often remembered as an age of morality and respectability. Yet behind this image lay a harsher reality for many women.

An unmarried pregnancy could mean poverty, abandonment, and social ruin. With no welfare system, limited employment, and little support, some women were driven to desperate acts that shocked society and filled the courtrooms of nineteenth-century Britain.

Drawing on court records, contemporary newspapers, and historical research, Desperate Women examines the hidden history of infanticide and baby farming. Through a series of real cases, W. M. Rhodes explores how social stigma, inequality, and the absence of support shaped the lives of vulnerable women - and the justice system that judged them.

This is both a work of historical true crime and a powerful study of Victorian social history, revealing stories that have long been overlooked.