Last Dying Words & Confession of Jane Wharton, Only Nineteen...
Possibly the Only Surviving Broadside on the Murder and Execution of Jane Wharton (Nottingham, 1823) - From the Library of Lawrence Stotter [Broadside]. [Execution]. Wharton, Jane [d.1823]. Last Dying Words & Confession of Jane Wharton, Only Nineteen Years of Age Who Suffered the Awful Penalty of the Law, At the Drop in Front of the County Jail, Nottingham, Monday, March 24, 1823, -For the Wilful Murder o. Her Husband, By Administering Laudnanm [sic], And Afterwards Driving a Nail into His Temples, So As to Cause His Immediate Death. Birmingham: R.T. Heppel, Printer, [1823]. 14-3/4" x 6-1/4" (37.6 x 16.2 cm) broadside, edges untrimmed. Now attractively matted and glazed in a modern frame. 18-3/4" x 10" (46.3 x 25.6 cm). Light soiling and faint creasing, lower left corner excised without loss of text. Very good (not examined out of frame). $2,500. * The broadside records the trial and execution at Nottingham (24 March 1823) of Jane Wharton for the murder of her husband, effected, according to the text, by administering laudanum and driving a nail into his temple. The sensational circumstances, together with her youth, place the piece firmly within the tradition of early nineteenth-century execution literature, ephemeral productions printed for immediate sale and rarely preserved. A document of the utmost rarity. We locate no copy in OCLC or Library Hub, nor in the catalogues of the British Library, Oxford, or other major repositories (March 2026). Apart from this example-formerly in the library of Lawrence Stotter and recently dispersed; it may well be unique. No corresponding accounts have been traced in accessible newspaper sources, reinforcing the likelihood that this broadside preserves the only surviving narrative of the crime. Recorded in Lawrence Stotter, To Put Asunder: The Laws of Matrimonial Strife 123-125 (this copy).
Price: $2,500.00
Book number 85787