It's now been over 150 years since ASPCA agents, at the direction of founder Henry Bergh, rescued little Mary Ellen Wilson from her abusive New York tenement home back in 1874. It's also been over 25 years since Eric A. Shelman and Stephen Lazoritz, M.D. released Out of the Darkness: The Story of Mary Ellen Wilson, which remains the only book about the little girl's case.

They are the only people in the entire world who were able to secure a copy of the original court transcripts for the prosecution of Mary Ellen's evil foster mother, Mary Connolly. They take that privilege seriously, so felt an update might be in order. To that end, they introduced a celebratory foreword written by Eric A. Shelman, and have included some additional photographs and drawings in this book. They hope you find it worth your time.

Also, with Eric taking over the narration for this special anniversary release, it adds another reason to celebrate.

(The previous edition is narrated by Deb Thomas, and will continue to be available with that book, originally released in print form in 1999.) We hope you enjoy living the "story of Mary Ellen" again.

We wanted to tell the tale in a dramatic format so the emotion of what took place could be felt by the listeners. Some critics have deemed this work to be historic fiction, but we dispute that.

We call it "creative nonfiction" because while some conversations and meetings were re-created from testimony and transcripts, if you finished this book and somebody asked you to tell them the story of Mary Ellen Wilson, everything you would tell them would be true. Period.

Enjoy this, and please, tell a friend and leave a review when you're done—that's always nice. Thank you, Eric A. Shelman and Stephen Lazoritz, M.D.