"TOO LIBERAL IN HER TEMPER TO CONFINE HER FAVOURS TO ONE SOLITARY OBJECT, AND A PHILANTHROPIST IN THE MOST EXTENSIVE MEANING OF THE TERM, IT WOULD REQUIRE A COMBINATION OF THE POWERS OF MEMORY AND OF LUNGS WITH WHICH I AM NOT BLESSED, TO GIVE YOU A LIST OF THE INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE BEEN HONOURED BY HER EMBRACES…"

(ADULTERY). Collection of Adultery Trials. London: various, circa 1780-1808. Octavo, contemporary full tan calf gilt, raised bands, marbled endpaper and edges. $3500.

A collection of reports of 11 adultery trials from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, combined with 30 engravings of scandalous encounters.

Published accounts of adultery trials were very popular in late-18th/early 19th-century England, a way to indulge a taste for the erotic and the scandalous under the (thin) veil of condemnation. Included here are the trials of Robert Gordon for adultery with the wife of Joseph Seymour Biscoe, Rev. Mr. Cooper with the wife of Lord Cadogan, Sir John Bennett Piers with the wife of Lord Cloncurry, "Thomas Theaker, Coachman, for Adultery with Mrs. Gregson," Thomas Sheridan with the wife of Peter Cambell, Captain Elwin with the wife of Sir George Brograve, J. Hacket with Mrs. Mansergh, R. J. Fergusson with the Countess of Elgin, Lord Borringdon and Sir A. Paget "for criminal conversation with the plaintiff's wife," Colonel T.R. Powlett and Lord Sackville with another plaintiff's wife, and Ralph Benson with the wife of Thomas Parr, The collection of 30 engravings bound at the back of this book are taken from Trials for Adultery: or, a History of Divorces, a multivolume work published beginning in 1779.

First two trials without title pages; ink marks to a few early pages; expert repair to contemporary binding.