The Crawford Divorce Case (Second Edition), Containing Important...
A Rare Account of a Career-Ending Divorce Case [Divorce]. Crawford v. Crawford and Dilke. The Crawford Divorce Case (Second Edition.) Containing Important Facts Disclosed Since the Trial. Illustrated with Portraits. London: F. Henning, 1886. [146] pp. Woodcut portrait frontispiece and a few small portrait vignettes. Octavo (7-1/4" x 4-3/4"). Recent stiff wrappers, edgeworn and lightly rubbed original pictorial front and rear wrappers laid down, loss to text of rear wrapper, which has a publisher advertisement, at upper and lower left corners. Light toning to interior, light foxing to margins in a few places, slight creasing to a few leaves, occasional underlining, brief notes to margins and manuscript page numbers in pencil, manuscript table of contents tipped onto inner rear wrapper. Rare. $650. * Second edition. The Crawford divorce case concerned a series of affairs carried on by Sir Charles Dilke [1843-1911], an MP and prominent member of the Liberal Party. In addition to an affair with Ellen Smith, wife of a Liberal politician and the mother-in-law of Dilke's brother, he was accused of seducing Smith's nineteen-year-old daughter Virginia and continuing the affair after she was married. Virginia's husband, Donald Crawford, sued for divorce with Dilke as a party to the suit. This trial resulted in a decree nisi for the Crawfords but an unclear verdict on Dilke's responsibility for the affair. Dilke sought to reopen the case in order to clear his name, with devastating consequences--he was humiliated in court and the flood of subsequent accusations of adultery ended his political career. Our account, sympathetic to Dilke, appears to have gone through at least five editions with the fifth appearing in 1887. OCLC and Library Hub locate 5 physical copies of all editions worldwide and no physical copies of the second edition; we located 1 at the University of Minnesota Law School.
Price: $650.00
Book number 73775