{"id":4192,"date":"2026-01-19T15:49:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T15:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/?page_id=4192"},"modified":"2026-01-19T22:53:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T22:53:17","slug":"select-trials","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/collections\/british-and-irish\/select-trials\/","title":{"rendered":"Select Trials for Murder, &c."},"content":{"rendered":"

The ‘Select Trials for Murder, &c.’ series is probably the richest contemporary collection of eighteenth century criminal trials held at the Old Bailey, save for the official ‘Proceedings<\/a>‘, which will contain all the cases found in these volumes.<\/p>\n

These volumes are generally more formal than much of the literature of roguery of the eighteenth century, although the cases are chosen for some sensational aspect, and not, as with the cases collected in the English Reports<\/a>, for their contribution to case law. They are mostly transcripts of court proceedings, sometimes supplemented by other material; and they do differ from the accounts in the Proceedings, although not greatly. The Old Bailey Online<\/a> site says of them, “The early editions (up to and including 1742) are particularly useful as they often provide more complete transcripts of the trials than was published in the original Proceedings.” Apparently, the books of the first two editions are included in their database, but I have not been able to locate that material.<\/p>\n

First Edition, 1720 to 1732, published 1734-5.<\/h4>\n

Volume 1, 1720 – 1724: Internet Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Volume 2, 1724 – 1732: Internet Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Second Edition, 1720 to 1741, published 1742.<\/h4>\n

Volume 1, December 1720 – October 1723: Google Books<\/a>; Internet Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Volume 2, August 1723 – April 1726: Google Books<\/a>; Internet Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Volume 3, April 1726 – May 1732: Internet Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Volume 4, February 1733 – September 1741: Internet Archive<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Select Trials, 1741 to 1764, published 1764.<\/h4>\n

Volume 1, 1741 – 1750: Google Books<\/a>; Hathi Trust<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Volume 2, 1750 – 1754: Google Books<\/a>; Hathi Trust.<\/a><\/p>\n

Volume 3, 1753 – 1757: Google Books<\/a>; Hathi Trust<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Volume 4, 1757 – 1763: Google Books<\/a>. Hathi Trust<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ‘Select Trials for Murder, &c.’ series is probably the richest contemporary collection of eighteenth century criminal trials held at the Old Bailey, save for the official ‘Proceedings‘, which will contain all the cases found in these volumes. These volumes are generally more formal than much of the literature of roguery of the eighteenth century, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":420,"menu_order":10,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-4192","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4192\/revisions"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/statutes.org.uk\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}