Select Trials for Murder, Robbery, Burglary, Rapes, Sodomy, Coining.

London, 1764. 4 vols. Trials at Old Bailey, Indexed by Crime [Trials]. [Great Britain]. Select Trials for Murder, Robbery, Burglary, Rapes, Sodomy, Coining, Forgery, Pyracy, And Other Offences and Misdemeanours, At the Sessions-House in the Old-Bailey. To Which are Added, Genuine Accounts of the Lives, Exploits, Behaviour, Confessions, And Dying Speeches. Of the Most Notorious Convicts, From the Year 1741 to the Present Year, 1764, Inclusive; Which Completes the Trials from the Year 1720. London: Printed for J. Wilkie, 1764. Four volumes. 12mo. (6" x 4"; 15.2 x 10.2 cm). Contemporary calf with recent rebacking, gilt fillets to boards, lettering pieces and gilt-edged raised bands to spine, endpapers retained, hinges mended. Moderate rubbing to extremities with some wear to spine ends and corners, light scuffing and some minor gatoring to boards, boards of Volume I just beginning to separate, but secure, a few joints and hinges starting. Some toning to text, light foxing in places, lower corner lacking from pp. 119-120 in Volume I with loss to catchword. pp. 217-165 of this volume have misprinted page numbers corrected in early pencil, interior otherwise clean. A nice set. $1,500. * Indexed by crime, this set presents reports of trials held at the "Court of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery for London and Middlesex," better known as Old Bailey. Contents are arranged chronologically from 1740 to 1764. These accounts were published to amuse, titillate and perhaps instruct, and they are interesting today for their insights into the legal and cultural history of the early Georgian period. This title is the third and final set in a series of multi-volume trial collections, one published in 1734-35, another in 1742. Although these titles were issued by different publishers they have a uniform format and were later re-published as a five-volume work in 1764. English Short-Title Catalogue T82548.…