Miss Spitfire By Sarah Miller

“I assure you on the honor of a lady
that I would not tell you any untruth.”

Once the most hated woman in the United States, Mary Surratt is now all but forgotten.

Who was she?

The simplest answer: a mother, a Catholic, a widow, a landlady. But that is far from the whole story, for Mary Surratt’s Washington D.C. boarding house is among the locations where John Wilkes Booth and his allies — including Mary’s own son — are known to have gathered to plot the murder of Abraham Lincoln.

One hundred and fifty years ago, a grieving, furious nation confronted the question of whether Mrs. Surratt committed treason by aiding and abetting Booth in his conspiracy to assassinate the president and upend the government. Was she, as Vice President Andrew Johnson put it, the woman who “kept the nest that hatched the egg”? Or was she merely the victim of a spectacularly cruel coincidence?

From acclaimed author Sarah Miller comes nonfiction at its very best—action-packed, thought provoking, and steeped in thorny questions about guilt, innocence, and the meaning of justice.

Violet and Daisy Hilton circa 1922
Mary Surratt, circa 1852
Miss Spitfire By Sarah Miller

Hanged! Mary Surratt and the Plot to Assassinate Abraham Lincoln

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“[A] tour de force”

~ Booklist, starred review

“Sarah Miller…is a master at taking historical events and making them read like thrillers, and Hanged! is no exception. ”

~ NPR

“A bold, sympathetic, well-written account of a perplexing and complicated subject.”

~ Kirkus

“True crime fans will be enthralled by this compelling nineteenth-century case and the woman at its emotional center.”

~ Horn Book

“Will intrigue lovers of history and true crime stories”

~ School Library Journal

“Yet another absorbing work of nonfiction for teens.”

~ Shelf Awareness

HONORS & DISTINCTIONS

Booklist starred review

Booklist Top 10 History Books for Youth

CBC Best Children’s Books of the Year 2023

Junior Library Guild selection

NPR Books We Love 2022

INTERVIEWS

CrimeReads

On Writing Nonfiction About Violence for a Young Adult Audience