Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Categories
True crime

THE GIRL ON THE VELVET SWING

Simon Baatz

Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century

From New York Times bestselling author Simon Baatz, the first comprehensive account of the murder that made the Gilded Age - and of the trial that shocked the world.

In 1901, Evelyn Nesbit, the pin-up girl and penniless young actress, dined with Stanford White, the legendary architect whose works defined the New York landscape, at his 24th St. apartment. Evelyn drank champagne and was dazzled by a tour of White's decadent rooms, which included a sumptuous velvet couch swing on which Evelyn played. Evelyn was given more champagne, and lost consciousness. She woke, nearly naked, in bed next to White. White was 47 years old. Evelyn Nesbit was just 16. Four years later, tarnished by the air of impropriety that in those days surrounded a lowly career in the theater, Evelyn would marry Harry Thaw, a playboy millionaire rumored to be mentally unstable, and in whom she confided the story of her encounter with Stanford White. One night in 1906, a vengeful Thaw shot and killed White before hundreds of theater-goers during a performance at Madison Square Garden-a venue designed by none other than White himself. The city-and the nation that looked to it-erupted with news of the murder and ensuing trial, then the most sensational scandal in history: one so sordid that President Teddy Roosevelt himself would try and stop the press from covering it. But the murder of Stanford White stood for far more than tabloid scandal. Evelyn's shocking testimony would propel her to an uneasy stardom, an uncertain fortune, and send the case before the Supreme Court. Filled with the glamor, jealousy, and danger of the Gilded Age, The Girl on the Velvet Swing is an immersive, richly detailed look at an America dominated by men of outsize fortunes, and at the women whose lives depended on them. Simon Baatz is a New York Times-bestselling author and award-winning historian. He has graduate degrees in history from the University of Pennsylvania and Imperial College London, and he currently teaches United States history and American legal history at John Jay College, City University of New York. Simon grew up in London and has lived in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

Available products
Book Published 2018-01-16 by Mullholland Books

Comments

Mr. Baatz's gripping, deeply researched retelling... is a terrifically entertaining work of popular history: swiftly paced, richly evocative, engrossing from the first page.

Simon Baatz takes readers on the strange and sensational legal odyssey of Harry Thaw, the Pittsburgh millionaire who murdered famed architect Stanford White in 1906. . . Baatz offers a detailed and assiduously researched account of the shocking crime and its aftermath, with a focus on the legal wrangling that dominated two trials.

Simon Baatz has written a wickedly enjoyable book that enthralled me from start to finish. This multifaceted tale, rendered with an expert's touch, encompasses the aspirations and vices of an entire era.

The 9 Most Anticipated True Crime Books Of 2018 - In 1906, a Henry Thaw shot and killed Stanford White before hundreds of theatre-goers during a performance at Madison Square Garden after a love triangle turned ugly. The ensuing trial was "the scandal of the century" and every detail will have you on the edge of your seat.

Simon Baatz, the absolute master of the true crime genre, has written another page-turner. This book has everything, bad behavior in high places, a spectacularly public murder, courtroom drama, a daring escape, even a mother-in-law from hell. It reads like fiction, but it's all real. A wonderful book.

The 16 Best Nonfiction Books Of January 2018 To Get You Ready For The Year - In The Girl on the Velvet Swing: Sex, Murder, and Madness at the Dawn of the Twentieth Century, Simon Baatz delves into a high-profile crime and trial. At the center of it is Evelyn Nesbit, a chorus girl whose husband, Harry Thaw, murdered another man after she told him he had raped her when she was 16 years old.

Readers will appreciate Baatz's exciting, novel-like approach, and those interested in early twentieth-century law especially will enjoy the courtroom scenes.

Best Book of the Month for January 2018

The Girl on the Velvet Swing is a must-read, a book that is ceaselessly engaging, one surprise following another, even to the author's final assessment of Stanford White and his relationship to Evelyn Nesbit.

An entertaining recital of a notorious scandal.

In his absorbing, well-written, and meticulously researched account of the murder of Stanford White, Simon Baatz delves deeper than ever before into the event's judicial, popular, and psychiatric dimensions and ramifications.