author

Edwin H. Porter

A newspaper reporter from Fall River, Massachusetts, left behind one of the earliest and most vivid book-length accounts of the Lizzie Borden case. His writing carries the urgency of someone close to the story and reporting it as the public followed every turn.

1 Audiobook

The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders

The Fall River Tragedy: A History of the Borden Murders

by Edwin H. Porter

About the author

Edwin H. Porter was a police reporter for the Fall River Globe and also worked as a correspondent for the Boston Herald. He is best remembered for The Fall River Tragedy (1893), a near-contemporary account of the Borden murders built from official sources and his firsthand reporting around the case.

The book stands out because it was written so close to the events themselves. Modern editions and library records describe Porter as a local journalist who attended the Lizzie Borden proceedings and lived near the Borden home, which helps explain the immediacy and detail in his narrative.

Some later retellings claimed he disappeared after publishing the book, but published notes attached to modern editions say that story is not correct. Those sources report that he continued working as a reporter and died of tuberculosis in 1904 at about thirty-nine years old.