The girl on the velvet swing : sex, murder, and madness at the dawn of the twentieth century / Simon Baatz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Baatz, Simon, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

White, Stanford, 1853-1906.

White, Stanford.

Nesbit, Evelyn, 1884-1967.

Nesbit, Evelyn.

Thaw, Harry Kendall, 1871-1947.

Thaw, Harry Kendall.

United States--History--20th century.

Murder--New York (State)--New York--Case studies.

Murder.

Trials (Murder).

New York (State)--New York.

Trials (Murder)--New York (State)--New York--Case studies.

Crime.

Social change--History.

Homicide--New York (State)--New York.

Local Subjects:

United States--History--20th century.

Crime.

Social change--History.

Homicide--New York (State)--New York.

Genre:

Case studies.

True crime stories.

Physical Description:

392 pages : illustrations, portraits, facsimiles ; 25 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : Mulholland Books, Little, Brown and Company, 2018.

Summary:

A chronicle of the events surrounding the 1906 murder trial of millionaire Harry Thaw details the victimization of teen actress Evelyn Nesbit and Thaw's vengeance-fueled, public murder of legendary architect Stanford White.

"In 1901 Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl in the musical Florodora, dined alone with the architect Stanford White in his townhouse on 24th Street in New York. Nesbit, just sixteen years old, had recently moved to the city. White was forty-seven and a principal in the prominent architectural firm McKim, Mead & White. As the foremost architect of his day, he was a celebrity, responsible for designing countless landmark buildings in Manhattan. That evening, after drinking champagne, Nesbit lost consciousness and awoke to find herself naked in bed with White. Telltale spots of blood on the bed sheets told her that White had raped her. She told no one about the rape until, several years later, she confided in Harry Thaw, the millionaire playboy who would later become her husband. Thaw, thirsting for revenge, shot and killed White in 1906 before hundreds of theatergoers during a performance in Madison Square Garden, a building that White had designed. The trial was a sensation that gripped the nation. Most Americans agreed with Thaw that he had been justified in killing White, but the district attorney expected to send him to the electric chair. Evelyn Nesbit's testimony was so explicit and shocking that Theodore Roosevelt himself called on the newspapers not to print it verbatim. The murder of White cast a long shadow: Harry Thaw later attempted suicide, and Evelyn Nesbit struggled for many years to escape an addiction to cocaine. The Girl on the Velvet Swing, a tale of glamour, excess, and danger, is an immersive, fascinating look at an America dominated by men of outsize fortunes and the women who were their victims."--Dust jacket.

Contents:

First encounter

Rape

Marriage

Murder

First trial

Second trial

Asylum

Escape

Final verdict

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [359]-380) and index.

ISBN:

9780316396653

0316396656

OCLC:

1018380270