The Untold Story of Frances Glessner Lee and the Invention of Modern Forensics
by Bruce Goldfarb
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Published Feb 2020
368 pages
Genre: Biography/Memoir
Publication Information
The story of a woman whose ambition and accomplishments far exceeded the expectations of her time, 18 Tiny Deaths follows the transformation of a young, wealthy socialite into the mother of modern forensics.
Frances Glessner Lee, born a socialite to a wealthy and influential Chicago family in the 1870s, was never meant to have a career, let alone one steeped in death and depravity.
Yet she developed a fascination with the investigation of violent crimes, and made it her life's work. Best known for creating the Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death, a series of dollhouses that appear charming―until you notice the macabre little details: an overturned chair, or a blood-spattered comforter. And then, of course, there are the bodies―splayed out on the floor, draped over chairs―clothed in garments that Lee lovingly knit with sewing pins.
18 Tiny Deaths, by official biographer Bruce Goldfarb, delves into Lee's journey from grandmother without a college degree to leading the scientific investigation of unexpected death out of the dark confines of centuries-old techniques and into the light of the modern day.
Lee developed a system that used the Nutshells dioramas to train law enforcement officers to investigate violent crimes, and her methods are still used today.
18 Tiny Deaths transports the reader back in time and tells the story of how one woman, who should never have even been allowed into the classrooms she ended up teaching in, changed the face of science forever.
"Goldfarb's storytelling gifts will lead readers of insightful true crime to hope he will write more in the field. Devotees of TV's CSI will have their minds blown." - Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Thorough research helps him paint a captivating portrait of a feminist hero and forensic pioneer." - Booklist
"[E]ye-opening...A genuinely compelling biography." - Kirkus Reviews
"Goldfarb's clearly written and well-researched book is recommended for history and legal studies audiences." - Library Journal
"A culmination of years of historical research using primary sources, including the papers of Frances Glessner Lee herself. It is the story of how one stubborn, intelligent, creative, and self-taught woman could immerse herself in a passion that had immense repercussions in the fields of both medicine and the law...As this absorbing and evocative book will show you, Frances Glessner Lee should be recognized as the matriarch of the modern practice of forensic pathology." - Judy Melinek, M.D., co-author of Working Stiff
"Frances Glessner Lee's dioramas of death have long been objects of fascination; now Bruce Goldfarb, the man who knows them best, has written a definitive account of how they came to be, and of the compelling, complex woman who created them. This book will beguile anyone with an interest in forensic science or the history of crime investigation." - Rachel Monroe, author of Savage Appetites: Four True Stories of Women, Crime, and Obsession
This information about 18 Tiny Deaths was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
A former EMT/paramedic and a nursing school dropout, Bruce Goldfarb has written for national and local newspapers, magazines, and web publications. He also wrote and edited several medical texts and reference books. 18 Tiny Deaths is his first book of popular nonfiction. He lives in Baltimore, Maryland.
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