THE CANNING ENIGMA.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.VG++/VG++.No owner inscrptn,and no price- clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,subject colour pictorial portrait,illustrated dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Both head+foot of spine/ backstrip minisculely bumped with reciprocal creasing.Top edge lightly dust-soiled,lightly aged and minimally,sporadically spotted/foxed,fore- edges bighter and cleaner,but also minimally grubbed; contents bright, tight and near pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners - possibly an unread copy? Bright,clean, sharp-cornered, publisher's original plain black cloth boards with bright,crisp,stamped gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate b/w engraving scenic,town view illustrated endpapers.UK,slim 8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,xipp+1-166pp [paginated] includes acknowledgements,18 chapters,18 b/w contemporary illus/diagrams/plates interspersed through the book,but majority in one block of 12pp,between pp124/5,a bibliography and an index; plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,subject b/w engraving frntis,a dedication,author's note,and contents+illus lists/tables. The Elizabeth Canning trial produced one of the most intractable conflicts of evidence in English law.For Henry Fielding,magistrate and novelist,there was no mystery.He believed implicitly in the scullery maid's story: that she had been knocked on the head near Bedlam Wall in the City of London,dragged 10 miles to Enfield Wash,where she was robbed of her stays - a crime punishable by death - and locked up for a month by an old gipsy woman and a bawd.Due largely to Fielding's adversaries, Dr John Hill and Sir Crisp Gascoyne,Lord Mayor of London,it was Canning herself who was to stand in the dock at the Old Bailey in 1754. For they gave support to the gipsy,with Gascoyne's son,Bamber,acting as counsel.London divided into 'Canningnites' and 'Egyptians',and there was fighting in the streets.Over forty witnesses claimed the gipsy had been in Dorset (some thought as a smuggler,or as a government double agent) while more than half this number testified,equally positively,that she had been in Enfield.When the verdict came,and Canning was to be taken in chains from Newgate Gaol and deported to the American colonies,a fresh storm of controversy was unleashed in newspapers, broadsheets,petitions and ballads.Was she a fraud,a virgin or a slut? To modern eyes,Canning was arguably the first media product,elevated by chance circumstance and the power of the printed word.In two centuries no one has examined the case so thoroughly as does John Treherne in this brilliant expose,or shed as much light on the truth of the matter. Please contact rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,for correct shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!