A BBC ‘LADYKILLER’ AS FEATURED BY LUCY WORSLEY: Report of the Trial of Madeleine Smith before the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh... for the Alleged Poisoning

Court report on the trial of a young woman in high society Glasgow who was accused of murdering her secret lover, Alexander Forbes Irvine. Publisher’s brown textured cloth with a printed spine label, worn to head and tail of spine. Early ownership inscription, possibly American of a ‘Lesset Stephen’(?) beneath a paper ‘55c’ price. Two hand-tinted engravings of the scene of the crime, Blythswood Square. Internally clean. A very good copy.

At the end of the trial Smith (1835-1928) was acquitted of murdering her lover despite strong circumstantial evidence pointing her guilty; she subsequently married William Morris’s business manager, much later emigrating to New York City.