The Full Report of the Newman Hall Divorce Case, Police News Edition.
Only Known Copy of a Raucous Divorce Case [Trial]. Hall v. Hall. The Full Report of the Newman Hall Divorce Case [Drop-Head Title]. At head of drop-head title: Police News Edition. London: [S.n.], c.1880. 16 pp. Title page has large woodcut portraits of the Halls. Octavo (8-1/4" x 5-1/4"). Stab-stitched pamphlet, thread lacking. Moderate toning, light edgewear and chipping to spine, light foxing to final few leaves, title page affected by trimming to top and fore-edges without loss to legibility. Rare. $850. * Only edition. In 1880, Christopher Newman Hall, a minister who had gained fame in Britain and the United States with his tract Come to Jesus (1848), accused his wife Charlotte of adultery with a friend of the couple. She denied the accusations and accused him of infidelity in turn. The couple was not particularly compatible; Charlotte was a free spirit who loved to hunt and smoke, habits her husband despised on moral grounds. Newman Hall's high profile and the humor of much of the testimony made the trial a raucous affair, with frequent bursts of laughter from witnesses to the despair of the judge. Newman Hall ultimately succeeded in obtaining a decree nisi and remarried later that year. Our title, one of the many penny tracts that circulated among the literate poor, has slipped through the cracks of history and bibliography. Not located at Harvard or the British Library. No physical copies listed on OCLC or Library Hub.
Price: $850.00
Book number 72802