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Maria Marten, or The Murder in the Red Barn has passed into legend. The story has all the popular elements of melodrama:
- the wicked squire;
- the poor, innocent village maiden, sadly wronged;
- a gypsy curse;
- her gypsy lover;
- her child's death (perhaps by poison);
- her upright, respectable father; and
- her mother's mysterious dream by which the murder was discovered.
But this tale is more than a legend. Maria Martin was murdered in The Red Barn. Her lover William Corder was arrested for the murder, brought to trial and executed at Bury St Edmunds in August 1828. So much is historical fact, but even before the trial the elements of this sordid country murder were being sensationalized by media hype. As the 19th century progressed new elements were grafted onto the story. Fact and fiction merged into a folk tale which still fascinates today.
The web pages on the left set out to tell that story.
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