How long does it take to read The Murder of Helen Jewett?
The Murder of Helen Jewett by Patricia Cline Cohen takes about 8 hours 33 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 8 hours 33 minutes
A week or two of reading
First published 1998. 466 pages, about 128,150 words.
18 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 14 hours 14 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 8 hours 33 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 5 hours 20 minutes |
The page count is the median across 2 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett. From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. But she was to meet her match - and her nemesis - in a youth called Richard Robinson. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder. He stood trial in a five-day courtroom drama that ended with his acquittal amid the cheers of hundreds of fellow clerks and other spectators. With no conviction for murder, nor closure of any sort, the case continued to tantalize the public, even though Richard Robinson disappeared into the wilds of Texas and a new life under a new name. Through her meticulous and ingenious research, Patricia Cline Cohen traces his life there and the many twists and turns of the lingering mystery of the murder.
Subjects: History, Murder, Biography, Prostitutes, Moral conditions, Prostitution
