The Great Trial of the Nineteenth Century, Inscribed to Frank Parsons

The (Fictional) Trial of President McKinley for War Crimes Parks, Samuel C. [1820-1917]. The Great Trial of the Nineteenth Century. Kansas City, MO: Hudson-Kimberly Publishing Co., 1900. 137 pp. Original green cloth, gilt title to spine, patterned endpapers. Negligible light rubbing to boards and extremities. A few slight cracks to text block, all leaves secure, internally clean, final signature partially unopened. Author's presentation inscription "To Prof. Frank Parsons, with the compliments of the Author, Samuel C. Parks" dated April 23, 1902 to front endleaf, small ms correction to p. 7. $150. * Only edition. Parks was an American lawyer and jurist who served on the territorial supreme courts of Idaho, New Mexico and Wyoming; he was also a close friend of Lincoln, to whom the book is dedicated. The book details the fictional trial of William McKinley "for murdering twenty thousand Filipinos and two thousand Americans, many of whom were boys between sixteen and twenty-one years of age" during the Spanish-American War (13). Historical figures John Marshall, James Kent, Cincinnatus, Alfred the Great and Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Madison and Lincoln, among others, feature prominently, giving "evidence" for and against McKinley based on their published writings and speeches. Our copy is inscribed by Parks to Frank Parsons [1854-1908], a reformer and public intellectual who taught at Boston University School of Law for more than a decade.…