Professional Criminals of America (A Rogue's Gallery, 1st ed.)

Thomas F Byrnes

Cassell & Co., 1886

1st edition. Housed in custom-made cloth clam shell box.  Bound in the publisher's half leather and over brown cloth. Rebacked spine.  Glass ring plateau on front cover. 433 pp.: illustrations, portraits ; 29 cm. Frontis of Inspector Byrnes. 204 photographic images of criminals on 34 leaves. Hardcover. Contemporary marbled end pages, lightly chipped at edges.  

A late-nineteenth century rogues gallery of America's foremost murderers, bank robbers, con men, forgers, embezzlers, and pickpockets. Written in 1886, Professional Criminals of America contains biographical sketches, including photographs, of some four hundred of the nation's leading criminals. Each profile details the crimes committed and the circumstances leading up to arrest and conviction. Also included are short, informative chapters on criminal methods, executions, opium addiction, fugitives from justice, and prison commutation laws, along with intriguing chapters on mysterious unsolved murders, adventurers and adventuresses, and a list of every prison and state penitentiary in America at the time of publication.

This is an oversized or heavy book, which requires additional postage for international delivery outside the US.