An announcement from the HLS Library’s Special Collections department:
A new digital collection, Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914
The Harvard University Libraries have launched a new digital collection, Studies in Scarlet: Marriage and Sexuality in the U.S. & U.K., 1815-1914. Drawn from the Harvard Law School Library’s extensive trial collections, Studies in Scarlet presents images of the texts of over 420 separately published trial narratives printed in the United States or the United Kingdom from 1815 to 1914. Especially valuable as sources for the study of the history of women, the cases involve not only trials for divorce, domestic violence, bigamy, seduction, breach of promise to marry, and the custody of children but also those for murder and rape. Featured are trials concerning the wealthy and the renowned, such as Caroline, Queen Consort of George IV; Oscar Wilde; and Harry Thaw, who murdered the architect Stanford White in a fit of jealous rage. The larger part of the collection, however, consists of the stories of ordinary men and women thrust into the public eye when their marriages and love affairs went wrong, or their relationships did not conform to social standards.
The collection may be viewed at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.eresource:sscarlet
For more digital collections at Harvard, see http://digitalcollections.harvard.edu