Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton

✍ Scribed by Hughes, Rowland; King-Hall, Magdalen

• Book ID: 109074917
• Publisher: University of Hertfordshire Press
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 287 KB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9781909291348

✦ Synopsis

First published in 1944, Magdalen King-Hall's Life and Death of the Wicked Lady Skelton is a historical novel set in late-seventeenth-century England. It tells the story of Barbara Skelton, a well-born young woman trapped in a loveless marriage, who finds escape from the tedium of her life by leading a double life as a highway robber. Rich in historical detail and high on melodrama, the novel follows Barbara's infamous career of robbery, adultery and murder, without painting her entirely as a monster. Indeed, the novel's status as a bestseller owes much to King-Hall's sympathetic depiction of the frustrations of domestic life for an ambitious, intelligent woman with no means of self-expression.