ABSTRACT
This article analyzes a dime-novel detective story written in 1892 and based on the then-current Lizzie Borden murder case. In the novel, the murders have been committed by counterfeiters, not by Lizzie, and Lizzie herself is fictionalized in terms of prevailing Victorian stereotypes of womanhood. An examination of counterfeiting and images of womanhood in terms of economic capitalism and literary realism reveals how literary representations function to contain social evils by reconstructing them as texts more recognizable and acceptable to the contemporary society. Also revealed is the instability of these reconstructions as realistic or truthful representations.