The Trial of Sir Francis Blake Delaval. DELAVAL (Sir Francis Blake).

The Trial of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, Knight of the Bath at the Consistory Court of Doctors Commons, For Committing Adultery with Miss Roach, alias Miss La Roche, alias Miss Le Roche. This Trial was instituted by Lady Isabella Delaval, wife of Sir Francis Blake Delaval, and Daughter of the Earl of Thanet. To which is added, The Trial of George Fitzgerald, Esq. This Trial was Published at the earnest solicitation of man Ladies in the amorous Ton.

First Edition. 8vo. [218 x 135 x 16 mm]. [2]ff, 68pp. Modern calf, the spine tooled in blind with an older label.
London: printed for the Proprietors, and Sold by C. Etherington, No. 137 Fleet-street, G. Lister, No. 46, Old Bailey; and all the Booksellers in Town and Country, [1782].

Originally priced at One Shilling and Sixpence. At the front is bound an obituary notice and a three page memoir of Sir Francis Blake Delaval (died 1771) the latter taken from The Court Miscellany, and at the rear are four pages on the sudden death from the Town and Country Magazine and two notices, one from the Norwich Mercury. The text is quite heavily foxed and there are a few stains, but nothing offensive. This is the sole edition and rare, with ESTC locating six copies, at Advocates Library, British Library, Dublin Honourable Society of King's Inn, Harvard Law, University of Texas at Austin and Yale.

The two trials took place in 1755 and 1753, and the long delay in publishing the accounts is partly explained in the preface, signed "S.B." - "The ladies who have committed matrimonial faux pas, have been so unmercifully handled in a variety of late publications, that I am determined to stand forth their champion: I would not have it understood that I mean to justify their conduct, or that I wish to throw a veil over the fashionable vices of the age. It must however be admitted, that, among all the trials for infidelity, which have hitherto been ushered into the world, care has been taken not to insert a single one that has been instituted against the men;- the ladies only have been exposed. - And why? Because the men have been the editors and publishers! - How illiberal, unjust, and partial are such proceedings!"

Stock no. ebc8259