Focusing on the 'long eighteenth century' this collection of essays charts the transition of British legal proceedings from early scenes of noise and disorder, to a much more rigid and solemn atmosphere by the start of the nineteenth century. Through an investigation into the extent to which legal proceedings may be understood as theatre and counter-theatre, the impact of lawyers' intervention in the courtroom, and the role and impact of print media in relation to trials, the volume opens up fascinating vistas upon the cultural dimensions of Britain's law courts.

Chapter 1 Introduction: Criminal Courts, Lawyers and the Public Sphere, David Lemmings; Chapter 2 Trials in Print: Narratives of Rape Trials in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, Esther Snell; Chapter 3 'Useful and entertaining to the generality of Readers': Selecting the Select Trials, 1718-1764, Andrea McKenzie; Chapter 4 Representing the Adversary Criminal Trial: Lawyers in the Old Bailey Proceedings, 1770-1800, Robert Shoemaker; Chapter 5 Arts of Public Performance: Barristers and Actors in Georgian England, Simon Devereaux; Chapter 6 Negotiating Justice in the New Public Sphere: Crime, the Courts and the Press in Early Eighteenth-century Britain, David Lemmings; Chapter 7 Contemplating the Evil Within: Examining Attitudes to Criminality in Scotland, 1700-1840, Anne-Marie Kilday; Chapter 8 Fiction or 'Faction'? Literary Representations of the Early Nineteenth-century Criminal Courtroom, Allyson N. May; Chapter 9 Publishing Courtroom Drama for the Masses, 1820-1855, Rosalind Crone;