Author Description

Since her execution at Holloway prison in 1923, Edith Thompson has haunted the conscience of the nation. Grave doubts were expressed at the time about the extent to which she was responsible for her husband's murder in Ilford by her handsome young lover Frederick Bywaters. The Home Office files on the case were marked not to be opened for 100 years. The case against her rested largely on the evidence provided by 70 letters which she wrote to Bywaters. The truth is that these letters offer a unique insight into the workings of an overwrought romantic imagination, ultimately unable to free itself from the constraints of a suburban marriage and respectability. Through this correspondence and a painstaking reconstruction of the era, the author argues that Mrs Thompson was innocent.