'Susanne Kord offers concise, thoughtful, and - in her treatment of scholarship - exceptionally masterful and stimulating insights into ideas about female deviance at the threshold of modernity. Her book inspires further discussion about the question to what extent modern penal systems can be understood as expressions of humaneness or rather … as internalizations of social, moral and gender-constituting codes that should be resisted to this day.' Dr Achim Saupe, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam

• 1. Criminal women: on bodies, paradoxes, performances and tales; 2. The evil eye: witches; 3. The plague: vampires; 4. Pride: husband-killers; 5. Shame: child-killers; 6. The female self: poisoners; 7. The end: the etiquette of execution; Works cited; Index.

'Susanne Kord offers concise, thoughtful, and - in her treatment of scholarship - exceptionally masterful and stimulating insights into ideas about female deviance at the threshold of modernity. Her book inspires further discussion about the question to what extent modern penal systems can be understood as expressions of humaneness or rather … as internalizations of social, moral and gender-constituting codes that should be resisted to this day.' Dr Achim Saupe, Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung, Potsdam

• 1. Criminal women: on bodies, paradoxes, performances and tales; 2. The evil eye: witches; 3. The plague: vampires; 4. Pride: husband-killers; 5. Shame: child-killers; 6. The female self: poisoners; 7. The end: the etiquette of execution; Works cited; Index.