The Baby Farmers: A Chilling Tale of Missing Babies, Shameful Secrets and Murder in 19th Century Australia by Annie Cossins

Book Description

Secondhand. Good condition. Wear to book corners and edges. Faint marks on inside front cover. Previous owner has signed inside page, now covered with blank ex libris bookplate sticker. Foredges have sunned.

In October 1892, a one-month-old baby boy was found buried in the backyard of Sarah and John Makin, two wretchedly poor baby farmers in inner Sydney. In the weeks that followed, twelve more babies were found buried in the backyards of other houses in which the Makins had lived.

This resulted in the most infamous trial in Australian legal history and exposed a shocking underworld of desperate mothers, drugged and starving babies, and a black market in the sale and murder of children.

Annie Cossins pieces together a dramatic and tragic tale with larger-than-life characters: theatrical Sarah Makin; her smooth-talking husband, John; her disloyal daughter, Clarice; diligent Constable James Joyce, with curious domestic arrangements of his own; and a network of baby farmers stretching across the city. It's a glimpse into a society that preferred to turn a blind eye to the fate of its most vulnerable members, only a century ago. (back cover)