Alice + Freda Forever is a gut-wrenching story of love, death, and the dangers of intolerance.--Bustle
In 1892, America was obsessed with a teenage murderess, but it wasnt her crime that shocked the nation--it was her motivation. Nineteen-year-old Alice Mitchell had planned to pass as a man in order to marry her seventeen-year-old fiance Freda Ward, but when their love letters were discovered, they were forbidden from ever speaking again.
Freda adjusted to this fate with an ease that stunned a heartbroken Alice. Her desperation grew with each unanswered letter--and her fathers razor soon went missing. On January 25, Alice publicly slashed her ex-fiances throat. Her same-sex love was deemed insane by her father that very night, and medical experts agreed: This was a dangerous and incurable perversion. As the courtroom was expanded to accommodate national interest, Alice spent months in jail--including the night that three of her fellow prisoners were lynched (an event which captured the attention of journalist and civil rights activist Ida B. Wells). After a jury of the finest men in Memphis declared Alice insane, she was remanded to an asylum, where she died under mysterious circumstances just a few years later.
Alice + Freda Forever recounts this tragic, real-life love story with over 100 illustrated love letters, maps, artifacts, historical documents, newspaper articles, courtroom proceedings, and intimate, domestic scenes.
Author: Alexis Coe Language: EnglishBinding: HardcoverPages: 224Publisher: Zest Books Publication Date: 2014-08-01
