1924  Copy of  ' Studies In Murder '
http://laurajames.typepad.com/clews/2007/08/elp-rip.html

Edmund Lester Pearson was a professional librarian in NY and the Library of Congress and a writer of true crime. He did articles for Vanity Fair and other magazines, as well as several collections of crime essays and many novels, including one on Lizzie Borden.

This 1924 book tells about five famous murders that occurred decades earlier.  Pearson was "one of the best trial and crime reporters" in the 1920s-1930s.  In all five cases the determination of guilt or innocence rested on circumstantial evidence. The Five Murders are described below. The book also includes plans of houses, b/w photos, and 295 pages with appendix of information on each case.

"The Borden Case"  attracted national attention and divided public opinion as no criminal prosecution had ever done before or since.  Families were divided and argued over this fascinating case. The verdict did not solve this puzzle.

"The Twenty-Third Street Murder"  - July 29,1870 was of Benjamin Nathan (pictured) a New York financier.  He was beaten to death in his own room, while his two sons slept in the house.  The blood spattered walls and door spoke of a violent struggle; the open safe and empty cash box spoke to the motive.

"Mate Bram" concerns the voyage of the barkentine 'Herbert Fuller' from Boston on July 3,1896. Most of the crew was new to the ship and each other.  There were quarrels between the first and second mate.  The Captain and his wife along with the second mate, were murdered.  The grand jury indicted the first mate but 21 years later he was given full pardon - Pearson goes over evidence and why the verdict was changed..

"The Hunting Knife" is about the murder of Mabel Page on March 31,1904.  Her reitred father came home and found her dead - money was missing from her purse.

"Uncle Amos Dreams a Dream"  is about the Boorn case of Vermont - Russell Colvin disappeared on May 10, 1812  - seven years later Uncle Amos dreamed that Russell was murdered by his brothers-in-law and buried in a filled-up cellar hole. Bones were found.  Two brothers were arrested and found guilty one was to be hanged, but someone from another state saw the case in paper and recognized the DEAD man. He called police saying he was still alive...
 

EXCERPT: Opening Chapter

---

During my first year of service the Jack the Ripper murders occurred in Whitechapel. Again and again bodies of women, murdered and mutilated, were found in the East End; but every effort to bring the assassin to justice failed. For a while there was an atmosphere of terror in the district. This business brought about my first glimpse of the neighbourhood in which so much of my life was to be spent. In view of the work that I was to do there later there was a touch of coincidence in the fact that my earliest recollections should be concerned with a great murder mystery.

Not that I had much to do with it. In common with hundreds of others I was drafted there, and we patrolled the streets usually in pairs-without any tangible result. We did, however, rather anticipate a great commercial invention. To our clumsy regulation boots we nailed strips of rubber, usually bits of old bicycle tires, and so ensured some measure of silence when walking. Officially, only five (with a possible sixth) murders were attributed to Jack the Ripper. There was, however, at least one other, strikingly similar in method, in which the murderer had a very narrow escape. This occurred something more than two years after the supposed last Ripper murder.

The story is chiefly concerned with a very young officer named Ernest Thompson who had been only six weeks in the service when, on February 13, 1891 - an ominous date - he went out for the first time alone on night duty. A part of his beat was through Chambers Street, from which at that time a turning, most inappropriately named Swallow Gardens, ran under a dark, dismal railway arch towards the Royal Mint. Thompson was patrolling Chambers Street when a man came running out of Swallow Gardens towards him. As soon as he perceived the officer he turned tail, made off at speed in the opposite direction, and was in a few seconds lost to view. Thompson moved into Swallow Gardens and on turning the corner came across the body of a murdered woman - Frances Coles - mutilated in much the same fashion as the victims of the Ripper. The spot had possibly been chosen because it commanded a view in three directions.

It is probable that had Thompson been a little more experienced he would have taken up the chase of the fugitive immediately. In all likelihood he would have made a capture which might possibly have solved a great mystery. But it is understandable that this young man was so taken aback by his grim discovery that he did not take the obvious steps. It was certainly through no lack of personal courage, as later events showed. Whether the murderer was Jack the Ripper or not, he escaped. I fancy that the lost opportunity preyed on Thompson's mind, for I heard him refer to it in despondent terms more than once, and he seemed to regard the incident as presaging some evil fate for himself. By an uncanny coincidence his forebodings came true. The first time he went on night duty he discovered a murder; the last time he went on duty, some years later, he was murdered himself.

It happened in this way. There was a night coffee stall in the Commercial Road, much haunted by bad characters on the lookout for victims whom they could follow to some quiet spot and rob-often with violence. Instructions were given to the police to prevent those not actually having refreshments from hanging about this stall. One morning, about one o'clock, Thompson ordered away a young man named Abrahams, who was forcing his attentions on some young women at the stall. After some argument, Abrahams moved sulkily away to some distance, opened a clasp knife, and made as if to return.

Thompson interposed, and a moment later fell to the ground, stabbed in the neck. But he did not fall alone. With great resolution he gripped his assailant's collar and held him till other officers came running up. "Hold him ! He has stabbed me!" he said. A moment later he was dead. Even in death he held so tightly to his prisoner that it took two men to loosen his grip.

Abrahams struggled violently when they got him away and they certainly did not handle him lightly. At any rate, he was suffering from bruises and other minor injuries when taken to the station. At the trial Mr. C. F. Gill (afterwards Sir Charles Gill, K. C.) put forward the ingenious defense that the injuries of Abrahams had been inflicted before the stabbing, and he was successful in getting the jury to return a verdict of manslaughter. I remember Mr. Justice Phillimore dryly remarking that the crime might have been held to be murder. Abrahams died in prison.

In Forty Years of Scotland Yard, Wensley downplays his role in the investigation, quipping that the only discovery he was privy to was the invention of the rubber-soled boot by patrolmen on the beat. He then details the Frances Coles murder, as well as the later murder of Ernest Thompson, the ill-fated constable who first discovered her body.

In 1519 Cellini removed to Rome, remaining until the city's fall to the Spanish Emperor in 1527. Among Cellini's surviving works dating to this early period in his career is a gold medallion with carved stone inset, "Leda and the Swan," created for Gonfaloniere Gabbrello Cesarino and now in the collection of the museum at Vienna. Another of his patrons in the period was Cardinal Patriarch Marco Cornaro (B-61), of the powerful Cornaro della Regina family of Venice.

If his own later account is to be believed (a choice left to the reader), Cellini played a remarkable role in the ultimately unsuccessful defense of Rome in 1527, slaying the Constable of Bourbon in one attack and later killing Philibert, Prince of Orange, as well. After a brief stay in Florence, where he concentrated on producing medals (including "Hercules and the Numean Lion" in gold repousse and "Atlas Supporting the Sphere" in chased gold), Cellini returned again to Rome. Among his notable works for Pope Clement VII during this period were a peace commemorative medallion depicting the Pope, 1530, a chalice (not completed), and a magnificent morse [button] for the Pope's cope.

Then his work was interrupted again by one of the recurrent storm clouds that characterized his career: In 1529 he killed a man who had early killed Cellini's brother and, in another incident, wounded a notary of the city. Celini fled briefly to Naples but, upon the accession of Pope Paul III, returned to Rome. His stay this time was brief, however, culminating in a dispute with Pietro Alvise Farnese, the Pope's illegitimate son, and flight to Florence and Venice.

While at Florence he executed, 1535, a 40-soldi coin for Alessandro de Medici, depicting the Duke on one side and Saints Cosmo and Damian on the obverse. Fences were mended in Rome, however, and soon Cellini was back in Rome and back in favor. There he continued to produce coins and medals for the new Pope as he had for his predecessor. He also executed a gold prayerbook cover for Pope Paul III to give to Emperor Charles V.

The next storm cloud was imprisonment in 1537 on a charge (perhaps false) of stealing gems from a tiara of the Pope. Intervention by Cardinal d'Este of Ferrara (for whom he had created a silver cup) and others brought his release, and Cellini left Rome for the last time. His destination this time was the court of King Francis I of France.

Five productive years followed at Fontainebleau and Paris, as Cellini produced several of his most celebrated works, including a salt cellar (now in the museum at Vienna) and large silver statues (subsequently lost) of Jupiter, Vulcan and Mars. Characteristically, Cellini became embroiled in disputes with those around him and in 1545 he returned at last to his native Florence, where he remained until his death in 1571. At Florence Cellini created one of the most celebrated works of his long career and one of the notable monuments of the Italian Renaissance, the bronze figure Perseus holding the Head of Medusa. Other acclaimed statuary of the period include Ganymede on the Eagle and a bust of Cosimo I de Medici, both now in the Bargello Museum in Florence.

Much of Cellini's notoriety, and perhaps even fame, derives from his memoirs, begun in 1558 and abandoned in 1562, which were published posthumously under the title The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini. As noted by one biographer, "His amours and hatreds, his passions and delights, his love of the sumptuous and the exquisite in art, his self-applause and self-assertion, make this one of the most singular and fascinating books in existence."

This myth started only in the nineteenth century. Oxford scholar Gregory Hardy wrote that "it was not unusual for the Borgias to eliminate as many as one or two people every week? with a white powder, cantarela, which was sugary and had a pleasing taste when added to a dish, but quite deadly." Alexandre Dumas, in his Crimes Celebres, suggests that the Borgias forced a bear to swallow a strong dose of arsenic and, as the poison took effect, suspended the beast by his hind legs so that a stream of foam poured from its mouth. According to Dumas, this foam was then collected on a silver plate and bottled in the Vatican.

Among the wealthiest families in fifteenth and sixteenth century Italy, the Borgias entertained lavishly. A cardinal and a soldier in the service of the Vatican, Cesar Borgia hosted grand dinners in his palatial homes in Rome, Florence and Ferrara, often inviting as many as five hundred guests for eight or ten course dinners. After dining with him in 1497, the Duke of Tuscany wrote to his wife that in addition to serving "food that was inedible, the man himself is terrible. He passes air, sneezes and wheezes, scratches himself and blows his nose at table." Worst of all, it was said that Cesar was an impossible chatterer, never giving his guests a chance to say a word.

 Hedin's Persian exploits drew him further into Asia, acquainting him with its people and history. The book he wrote upon his return (Hedin 1887) set the tone for a string of travelogues, which were to make him into one of the best read explorers of his day. His prolific writing and extended lecture tours provided him with the financial means to maintain his family and also to finance future expeditions. He held no public or academic position. More>>>
Additional bio info

This books deals with scientific investigation and a study of the psychology of crime with famous murders.
"1928. The stories which I have selected for this series can be found in the official records, only one or two details have been rearranged in order to avoid giving pain and reopening old wounds. I have myself taken part either in the investigation or the final trials of the criminals. Several of the cases I have specially selected because of the ingenuity displayed both by the lawbreakers and the investigators. Contents: The Murder of Don Ramon Valdez Y Cazal; Orsini, the Croupier: A Tale of Monte Carlo; Latouche, the Apache: A Story of the Paris Underworld; Captain von Copenick, Convict and Humorist; Herr Grunenthal of the Reichsbank and his Tragic Love; The Death Planes: A Story of the First Aerial Pageant at Rheims, 1909; Allivi: The Bogus Death Ray; The Suicide Room: Hanoi Shan; The Scented Death: Hanoi Shan; and Mata Hari, Hindoo Dancer and Spy."

First Sentence:
Like the dark caverns among the rocks of the ocean bed, seen vaguely through the glass of a deep-sea diver's helmet, hidden and obscured by waving tentacles of weeds, with loathsome, terrible monsters moving sluggishly in their gloomy depths, so are the strange dark thoughts stirring constantly in the subconscious human mind - urging, warping, shaping the destiny of every man.

Ten Thousand Public Enemies, is about crime and prominent criminals (such as John Lazia, et al.) in Kansas City tracked by "the United States government, Division of Investigation," led by J. Edgar Hoover. Information on Lazia's crimes from 1908 to 1917 before his rise to organized crime fame. Cooper presents his research as gleaned from the official sources of that now famous department of the federal government [the FBI] in what is a crime novel format. What Verne Miller did in his Edgevale Road house in Kansas City when Fritz Mulloy telephoned that Frank Nash must be freed from federal officers, how Miller got Floyd and Richetti through Lazia, the ensuing massacre at the Union Station; dozens of such front page stories are viewed anew from back stage.

Courtney Ryley Cooper was a journalist and author of 30 books and over 500 magazine articles, starting with the Kansas City Star. He was stabbed and beaten in 1910 for his crime stories and was a friend of Buffalo Bill and J. Edgar Hoover, with special access to early FBI files. He wrote many autobiographical articles about his travels, especially in the Rocky Mountains, in which he often included photos. He lived in Idaho Springs, Colorado.

At least 17 of his stories were adapted to film -- he wrote many of the screenplays.
Ref: Filmography IMDB

Arnold Rothstein (January 17, 1882 - November 4, 1928) was a New York businessman and gambler who became a famous kingpin of organized crime. This is the true crime profile of the colorful 1920s underworld boss known by many names: A. R., Mr. Big, The Fixer, The Big Bankroll, The Man Uptown, and The Brain -- Arnold Rothstein seemed more myth than man. He was the inspiration for Meyer Wolfsheim in The Great Gatsby, and Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls.

BORN: August 24,1887, South Hadley, Massachusetts, USA
DIED:  March 27, 1958, Delray Beach, Florida, USA

Numerous TV and film adaptations of his stories.
See the IMDB Filmography

Murder at Belly Butte
T.Morris Longstreth & Henry Vernon

Adventures of an Outlaw
Memoirs of Ralph Rashleigh

Grimhaven (part of)
Robert Joyce Tasker (A convict) "Tiresome"

Big House of Mystgery
Patrick H. Weeks MD (Prison physician)

In the Clutch of Cirumstance
by an ex-convict

Crime, Crooks, and Cops
August Vollmer and Alfred E. Parker

Crime's Nemesiks
Luke S. May

Masterstrokes of Crime Detection
Lassiter Wren

Fighting the Underworld
PHilip S. Van Cise

Reminiscences of a Ranger

Memoirs of Count Von Bernstorff

Meddlers
H. I. Brock ("Too stupid. Couldn't read.")

The Axis Grand Strategy
Ladislas Farago ("Read 162 pgs only. Repetitious")

Sabotage
Henry Desmond Farren

The Caissons Roll
Hanson W. Baldwin

Lobagola
Autobiography of Bata Kindai Amzoga Ibn LoBagola, a Negro.
He says he learned to lie after coming to civilization.
He seems to have been an apt pupil.

American Comedy
Harold Lloyd's autobiography. "Swell."

The Foreign Language Schools
Lorrin A. Thurston (Nov 8 1920)

The Spotted Lion
Kenneth Gandar Dower  "Swell."

Book of Escapes and Hurried Journeys
John Buchan

Story of a Soldier's Life (Vol. 1)
Field-Marshal Viscount Wolseley

Pirate Junk
(Five months captivity with Manchurian bandits)
Clifford Johnson

Psychopathia Sexualis
Richard von Kraft-Ebing, M.D.

Court Life in China
Isaac TAylor Headland (Professor in the Peking Univ.)

Pool of Memory
E. Phillips Oppenheim (Autobiography)

Lost Treasure
A. Hyatt Verrill

Revolt at Sea
Irvin Anthony

The Passing of the Frontier
Emerson Hough ("Read 61 pages. Too dry")

The Old Merchant Marine
Ralph D. Paine

A Short History of the U S - 1492-1938
John Spencer Bassett Ph D

I Guarded Kings
Inspector Brust (?) Scotland Yard

Mr. Archer, USA
R.H. Platt Jr.
("Archer was presumably 'Capt Macklin' of Richard Harding Davis's story.")

The Story of A Beautiful Duchess
Bleackley (Duchess of Hamilton & Duchess of Argyll)

Present Indicative
Noel Coward

Mystery Cities
by Thomas Gann
Hardcover, Scribners, N.Y. 1925
Title Page: Mystery Cities Exploration and Adventure in Lubaantum Begins with Belize, capital of British Honduras, Central America --
Lubaantum evidently a ruined city of the Mayas -- three periods of occupation --
Fly leaf dedication: "To Ed  From Emma  December 25, 1926  Tarzan Again!"

Two volumes:
The Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown in the County of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massachusetts
1629-1818 by Thomas Bellows Wyman (Boston, David Clapp and Son  1879)

In Darkest Africa (2 volumes)
Henry M. Stanley

In Brightest Africa
Carl E. Akeley
Autographed "Edgar Rice Burroughs   Tarzana Ranch   Nov. 20, 1923

The Letters of Archie Butts (Personal Aide to President Roosevelt)
Doubleday Page & Co. 1924  N.Y.
Fly leaf: "Merry Christmas to Papa with a world of love from Joan   December 25, 1924"
(ERB expressed constant admiration for Teddy Roosevelt)
No notations in these books at all --

Jungle Trails and Jungle People
by Caspar Whitney   Harper & Bros.   New York & London
Fly leaf: "Edgar Rice Burroughs (sig)   Tarzana Ranch   March 1922"