8vo. [2], 366pp, [2]. With an engraved portrait frontispiece and a further five engraved plates. Bound by Hayes of Oxford in later gilt-tooled brown morocco, A.E.G. Lightly rubbed. Marbled endpapers, recent bookplate of Sydney John Robinson toe FEP, frontispiece laid-down, frontispiece and title page browned and softened, thumbed, scattered spotting.

The first edition of a detailed account of the trial of John William Holloway charged with the murder of his pregnant wife, Celia Holloway [née Bashford], in 1831. Holloway, a petty criminal with a less than wholesome reputation, had already had a child by Celia years prior to his violent act. At that time, he had refused to marry her and a bastardy warrant was issued against him. After a period of incarceration, and the birth of a second child, he wed Celia, only to soon after abscond with his mistress, Ann Kennet, whom he promptly illegally married. Desiring to be rid of his first wife and free of the support payments he had been ordered to pay to her, Holloway resorted to murder. Luring Celia under false pretence to a secluded basement where he strangled her before slitting her throat and stringing her body from the ceiling. He returned the next night and dismembered her limbs which he buried in a local copse in Rottingdean. Unfortunately for Holloway, the site was discovered several days later by a labourer and he was promptly arrested, sentenced to death, and hanged.