The Trial in Ejectment (At Large) Between Campbell Craig. TRIALS

KIDNAPPED

The Trial in Ejectment (At Large) Between Campbell Craig, Lessee of James Annesley Esq; And Others, Plaintiff; And the Right Honourable Richard Earl of Anglesey, Defendant: Before the Barons of His Majesty's Court of Exchequer in Ireland. Begun on Friday, November 11, 1743; And continued by several Adjournments to Friday the 25th of the said Month. Containing The Whole Evidence, as deliver'd by the Witnesses, with all the Speeches, and Arguments of the Judges, and of the Counsel: Corrected and Revised by Themselves. Published by the Permission of the the Right Honourable The Lord Chief Baron Bowes, The Honourable Mr. Baron Mounteney, and the Honourable Mr. Baron Dawson.

First Edition. Folio. [359 x 235 x 26 mm]. [2]ff, 99, 104-259 pp. Bound in recent half burgundy calf, marbled paper sides, the spine divided into six panels by raised bands, lettered in the second on a black label, plain endleaves, original red sprinkled edges.
London: printed for J. and P. Knapton, T. Longman, C. Hitch, C. Davis, and A. Millar, 1744.

Pp. 101-103 were missed in pagination.

A sensational case pitting James Annesley against his wicked uncle Richard Earl of Anglesey. To secure the title and family properties Richard seized James off the streets of Dublin in 1727 and shipped him to America where he spent 12 miserable years as an indentured servant in Delaware. Finally making it back to London he took his case to court for what was then the longest trial ever heard in the British Isles. The jury found for James but the affair dragged on until his death in 1760. Richard died a year later and was posthumously found guilty of bigamy and the earldom became extinct. The saga is said to be the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped and Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering.

Bound with: The Tryal of Mary Blandy, Spinster; For the Murder of the her Father, Francis Blandy, Gent. At the Assizes held at Oxford For the County of Oxford, on Saturday the 29th of February, 1752. Before The Honourable Heneage Legge, Esq; and Sir Sydney Stafford Smythe, Knt. Two of the Barons of his Majesty's Court of Exchequer. Published by Permission of the Judges.

First Edition. Folio. [1]f, 46pp.

London: printed for John and James Rivington, at the Bible and Crown , in St. Paul's Church-Yard, 1752

Early ink signature of J. Salwey at the head of the title.

Mary Blanding was a respectable 32 year old from Henley who was convicted of murdering her father with arsenic, despite her defence that she believed the poison to have been a love potion supplied by her lover. Blandy was hanged outside Oxford Castle for the crime of patricide.

Both works are in very good clean condition.

Stock no. ebc8272