Mary Ann Britland knew what she wanted, and how she was going to get it. She worked all day in a factory and moonlighted as a barmaid because she wanted to provide for her two daughters. She married Thomas Britland, a domestic servant, because she wanted a man who knew his way around a dish or two. And at the age of 39 she wanted her next door neighbour, Thomas Dixon. Unfortunately, she already had a husband and Thomas already had a wife.

To all intents and purposes, Martha Rendell might well have met her end on the gallows for the heinous crime of ‘being a step-mother’.

Some women take to children easily. They have a knack for knowing how to hold a baby, how to soothe a newborn who is fretting, and generally make the whole process of child rearing look like the most natural thing in the world for a woman to do.

Marie Fikáčková was not one of those women.

Winnie McKinnell thought that when she got married to Dr William Judd, it would lead to an exciting life.

The most important thing in a relationship or marriage is fidelity. Vera Renczi believed this, and throughout her life she came to see this belief as something more precious than life itself. The men who crossed her path also became well aware of how she felt about this. Although by the time it was brought to their attention the first grains of arsenic had already begun to dissolve.