A HANDBOOK ON HANGING. BEING A SHORT INTRODUCTION TO THE FINE ART OF EXECUTION, AND CONTAINING SUCH USEFUL INFORMATION ON NECK-BREAKING, THROTTLING, STRANGLING

Boston, Massachusettes: Hale, Cushman and Flint, 1929. First edition 12mo, 7" x 4 1/4". Bound in original black cloth with paper spine label. Save for a owner's inscription, (name and date), on the front free endpaper, this is a fine copy in original pictorial dust wrapper which although chipped and soiled, is complete. The repeating pattern of a man hanging from a scaffold in silhouette is used on the endpapers and spine label. Published the year after the more common British first edition. Surely this small book, with its keenly provocative perspective on the subject of capital punishment, stirred the winds of controversy amongst an American public still struggling with this issue.