The United States Criminal Calendar

Henry St. Clair’s The United States Criminal Calendar gathers together some of the most striking and disturbing accounts of crime, punishment, and human fallibility in early America.

Through detailed reports drawn from newspapers, court transcripts, and eyewitness testimony, St. Clair chronicles murders, forgeries, scandals, and acts of deception that gripped a young nation struggling to balance justice, morality, and spectacle. His narratives reveal a society both fascinated and repelled by its own shadows—where the courtroom served as theater, and the gallows as a grim moral stage.

Part history, part moral reflection, The United States Criminal Calendar exposes the dark undercurrent of a country proud of its liberty yet haunted by its vices. Written with a journalist’s clarity and a moralist’s purpose, it stands as a window into the turbulent conscience of 19th-century America.

Complete and unabridged edition of Henry St. Clair’s classic chronicle of American crime

Authentic 19th-century accounts of criminal trials, public justice, and moral decline

A vital resource for students of legal history, criminology, and early American culture

Essential reading for collectors of true crime, sensational literature, and Americana

To open these pages is to stand at the crossroads of virtue and vice—where justice was swift, mercy uncertain, and every verdict reflected the uneasy soul of a growing nation.