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The Sinners All Bow: Two Authors, One Murder, and the Real Hester Prynne Audiobook
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Acclaimed journalist, podcaster, and true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson tells the true story of the scandalous murder investigation that became the inspiration for both Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter and the first true-crime book published in America.
On a cold winter day in 1832, Sarah Maria Cornell was found dead in a quiet farmyard in a small New England town. When her troubled past and a secret correspondence with charismatic Methodist minister Reverend Ephraim Avery was uncovered, more questions emerged. Was Sarah’s death a suicide...or something much darker? Determined to uncover the real story, Victorian writer Catharine Read Arnold Williams threw herself into the investigation as the trial was unfolding and wrote what many claim to be the first American true-crime narrative, Fall River. The murder divided the country and inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter—but the reverend was not convicted, and questions linger to this day about what really led to Sarah Cornell’s death. Until now.
In The Sinners All Bow, acclaimed true-crime historian Kate Winkler Dawson travels back in time to nineteenth-century small-town America, emboldened to finish the work Williams started nearly two centuries before. Using modern investigative advancements—including “forensic knot analysis” and criminal profiling (which was invented fifty-five years later with Jack the Ripper)—Dawson fills in the gaps of Williams’s research to find the truth and bring justice to an unsettling mystery that speaks to our past as well as our present, anchored by three women who subverted the script they were given.
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"In her thorough examination of the difficult life and suspicious death of New England factory worker Sarah Cornell, skillfully applying 21st century forensics to this 19th century case, Kate Winkler Dawson succeeds brilliantly in pursuing her agenda to “return a voice to victims who have been silenced for centuries.” Her narrative study takes us beyond the sensational to reveal the social, religious and sexual conflict that ultimately led to Cornell’s death—and that influenced Nathaniel Hawthorne in creating the protagonist of The Scarlet Letter. The Sinners All Bow is historical narrative that makes a powerful argument for indispensability of truth in true crime."
— Paul Thomas Murphy, author of Shooting Victoria: Madness, Mayhem, and the Rebirth of the British Monarchy
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A fascinating re-examining of a true-crime mystery that continues to unfold.
— Jenny Lawson, New York Times bestselling author of Let’s Pretend This Never Happened -
The Sinners All Bow is an utterly original reinvention of the true-crime genre, deconstructing a celebrated and historical murder-mystery while also catapulting the reader through a riveting and unpredictable tale.
— Michael Finkel, New York Times bestselling author of The Art Thief and The Stranger in the Woods -
Time and space collapse as Kate Winkler Dawson brings the rigor and methods of today’s forensic investigators to bear on a two-centuries-old murder case. Told with precision and compassion, this brilliant reinvestigation explodes myths and exposes prejudices to get to the bottom of a heinous crime and restore the victim's sullied reputation. A masterclass on researching and writing true crime.
— Dean Jobb, author of A Gentleman and a Thief and The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream -
Kate does something remarkable in this book—she reexamines a 200-year-old crime, using modern forensic techniques and her own shrewd insights, to come to a persuasive conclusion that eluded the original investigators. Gripping and powerful, this is true crime writing at its finest.
— Paul Holes, author of Unmasked and co-host of the Buried Bones podcast -
In The Sinners All Bow, Kate Winkler Dawson has once again crafted an atmospheric page-turner that combines literary history, true crime, and the latest techniques of criminology. Deeply researched and highly suspenseful, Dawson's reportage of a little-known and unsettling crime in an old New England town not only influenced Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlett Letter, but also the way crime writing has been shaped since then. A captivating must-read for fans of true crime, and literary history at its finest.
— Roseanne Montillo, author of Deliberate Cruelty: Truman Capote, the Millionaire’s Wife, and the Murder of the Century -
Who killed Hester Prynne? In this haunting true crime investigation, Kate Winkler Dawson pursues justice for the real woman behind Hawthorne's heroine, Sarah Maria Cornell, whose mysterious death was initially ruled a suicide. Applying modern forensic techniques and joining forces with her 19th century counterpart, Catharine Williams, who wrote what is likely the first American true crime narrative, Dawson takes the reader on an intrepid and utterly gripping journey of discovery. Written in shimmering transportive detail, The Sinners All Bow is an exceptional work of historical reportage that resonates all too strikingly today.
— Abbott Kahler, New York Times bestselling author of Eden Undone: A True Story of Sex, Murder, and Utopia at the Dawn of World War II -
Equal parts educational, fascinating, and downright creepy, Kate Winkler Dawson once again raises the historical true crime bar.” .
— Karen Kilgariff, co-author of Stay Sexy and Don’t Get Murdered and co-host of the My Favorite Murder podcast -
A fascinating approach to the story of Sarah Cornell, the woman whose death is said to have inspired Nathaniel Hawthorne to create Hester Prynne in his 1850 novel, The Scarlet Letter. . . . Required reading for true-crime aficionados and those fascinated by puritanical New England.
— Kirkus Reviews -
Through skepticism, attention to detail, and inventive framing, Dawson offers another compelling entry into the genre of historical true crime.
— Booklist -
Breakneck pacing, a novelist’s gift for scene-setting, and an edifying analysis of the overlap between the Cornell case and Hawthorne’s novel make this a home run. Readers will be rapt.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review)
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About Kate Winkler Dawson
Kate Winkler Dawson is a seasoned documentary producer, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, WCBS News and ABC News Radio, Fox News Channel, United Press International, PBS NewsHour, and Nightline. She teaches journalism at the University of Texas at Austin.