Theodore Tilton against Henry Ward Beecher.
Verbatim Report of the Tilton-Beecher Trial
in the Original Parts
(Woodhull, Victoria) Theodore Tilton vs. Henry Ward Beecher. Action for Crim. Con. Tried in the city court of Brooklyn, Chief Justice Joseph Neilson, Presiding. Verbatim report, with portrait of … Published in parts during the progress of the trial. New York: McDivitt, Campbell & Co., Publishers, 1875.
18 parts in 17 vols., small 4to.; printed wrappers; occasional browning, chipping, or light foxing; one lacking lower panel; three lower panels detached but present. In a specially made cloth slipcase.
Complete run of McDivitt, Campbell’s printing of the verbatim report prepared by the official court stenographer of the Tilton-Beecher trial, each volume sold for 50 cents by mail (the final issue, two parts in one volume, was sold for $1.). With a note from the publisher inside the upper panel of each volume stating that,
[r]eaders will observe that the portions of the this pamphlet printed in large type, introductory to each day’s report, are no part, and do not purport to be a part of the verbatim Report of the Proceedings of the Court. They are reproduced here for the valuable and graphic pictures they present of the Scenes and Incidents of the Trial. That portion of each day’s record following the caption “The Proceedings,” is a verbatim Report of every word uttered by Court, Counsel and Witnesses.
The first volume is the only one without this caveat; in its place is printed a simple note summary of the case:
The trial of the suit of Theodore Tilton against the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, for alleged Criminal Conversation with Mrs. Elizabeth R. Tilton, damages being laid at $100,000, was begun in the City Court of Brooklyn, the Hon. Chief Justice Joseph Neilson presiding, Monday January 4th, 1875. A full statement of the preliminary papers and proceedings in the trial will appear in a subsequent part of this report.
Each volume contains a different portrait or series of portraits: Francis D. Moulton; Elizabeth Tilton; Theodore Tilton; Chief Justice Joseph Neilson, Hon. Roger A. Pryor, and ex-judge Samuel D. Morris; ex-judge William Fullerton; Gen. Benjamin Tracy; Henry Ward Beecher; Thomas G. Shearman; ex-judge John K. Porter; Elizabeth Turner; John W. Sterling; Hon. William A. Beach; Thomas E. Pearsall; Hon. William M. Evarts; John L. Hill, Esq.; Henry C. Bowen., Esq.; parts XVII and XVIII, two parts in one volume, include no portrait.
McDivitt, Campbell, publishers of legal and medical books, milked this trial for all it was worth: though the first two volumes are blank on their lower wrappers, volume three and four bear full-page adds for Pond’s Extract; the balance of the run advertises “volume I containing 800 royal octavo pages” of the trial, in both cloth ($3) and sheep ($3.50), with over a dozen promotional press blurbs, and with the statement: “The remaining volume, to complete the verbatim report of the trial, will be issued in numbers as fast as practicable.” (Beginning with part XI they advertise volume one still available in cloth at $3 and sheep, $3.50, but volume two for $3.50 in cloth, $4.00 in sheep.)
At least part of this set, owned by one E. Ellsworth (whose pencil signature on several volumes), was well-read; pencil lines and a handful of pencil notations adorn the margins of the first two volumes.
Scarce; in twenty years we have seen two bound sets, and none in separate parts.
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