A scarce illustrated New York publication issued immediately after the murder of Wall Street financier James Fisk Jr., documenting one of the most sensational true-crime stories of nineteenth-century America.
Bibliographic Details
Author: Anonymous.
Title: Life, Career and Assassination of James Fisk Jr.
Place: New York.
Publisher: No publisher stated.
Date: 1872.
Edition: Contemporary edition.
Pagination: 16 pp.
Illustrations: Numerous wood-engraved illustrations throughout.
Format: Periodical-style publication printed from a single large sheet and folded to form sixteen pages.
Size: Quarto, approximately 42.5 × 28 cm.
Condition
Good to Very Good. Moderate wear and fraying to the page edges together with general creasing from handling. A closed tear of approximately 14 cm extends into one engraved illustration without any loss of paper, together with a couple of smaller closed edge tears. A good survival for an inherently fragile nineteenth-century newspaper-style publication. Please examine the gallery photographs carefully or request a more detailed condition report.
Description
A rare and highly evocative piece of crime Americana, published in New York immediately after the assassination of James Fisk Jr., the notorious Wall Street financier, railroad executive and Gilded Age "Robber Baron." Produced in an illustrated newspaper format, it provides a vivid contemporary account of Fisk's extraordinary career, his involvement in the infamous Black Friday gold conspiracy with Jay Gould, the Fisk-Mansfield-Stokes scandal, his murder by Edward S. Stokes, the subsequent inquest, funeral and the public reaction throughout America.
Richly illustrated with contemporary wood engravings and intended as an inexpensive popular publication, examples were seldom preserved, making surviving copies genuinely scarce today. An excellent acquisition for collectors of American history, true crime, Wall Street, Gilded Age finance, illustrated newspapers and rare nineteenth-century ephemera.
Notes
James Fisk Jr. (1835–1872) rose from humble beginnings to become one of America's most controversial financiers. His attempted manipulation of the gold market during the Panic of 1869 and his sensational murder by Edward S. Stokes made international headlines, ensuring his place among the defining personalities of the Gilded Age.