This book traces key developments in the social, legal, and medical history of infanticide from the sixteenth through to the late twentieth century, not only in Britain but also in France, Germany, and South Africa. Focusing in particular on debates about concealment, and on notions of historical continuity and change, it will appeal to historians of crime, gender, medicine and law.

Contents: The trial of Harriet Vooght: continuity and change in the history of infanticide, Mark Jackson; Accusations of infanticide on the eve of the French Wars of Religion, Luc Racaut; Infanticide in early modern England: the Court of Great Sessions at Chester, 1650-1800, J.R. Dickinson and J.A. Sharpe; `The unfortunate maid exemplified': Elizabeth Canning and representations of infanticide in 18th-century England, Amy L. Masciola; Bodies of evidence, states of mind: infanticide, emotion, and sensibility in 18th-century England, Dana Rabin; Infanticide and the erotic plot: a feminist reading of 18th-century crime, Johanna Geyer-Kordesch; Infanticide, slavery, and the politics of reproduction at Cape Colony, South Africa, in the 1820s, Patricia van der Spuy; The murder of Thomas Sandles: meanings of a mid-19th-century infanticide, Margaret L. Arnot; Getting away with murder? Puerperal insanity, infanticide and the defence plea, Hilary Marland; Images and impulses: representations of puerperal insanity and infanticide in late Victorian England, Cath Quinn; The boundaries of Her Majesty's Pleasure: discharging child murderers from Broadmoor and Perth Criminal Lunatic Department, c.1860-1920, Jonathan Andrews; Legislating for human nature: legal responses to infanticide, 1860-1938, Tony Ward; "Nothing in between": modern cases of infanticide, Julie Wheelwright; Index.