Circus, Sideshow & Oddities

Elliott, Robert G., and Albert Beatty. Agent of Death, Inscribed and Signed. New York: Dutton, 1940. First edition, third printing. Inscribed and signed by Beatty on the ffep to the previous owner. Publisher’s gray cloth stamped in blue, electric chair illustration on front cover. Frontispiece and six full-page illustrations. 8vo. Slight bumps and fraying at edges; occasional soiling. Memoirs of the chief executioner of New York State, including Sing Sing Prison, yet strongly anti-capital punishment. Elliott oversaw the executions of Sacco and Vanzetti, Ruth Snyder, and Bruno Hauptmann, among hundreds of others. This copy is signed by the co-author, Albert Beatty, who helped Elliott finish the book as he was in failing health and died only days after approving the final manuscript. Illustrations include the death chamber and electric chair at Sing Sing, and facsimiles of letters of invitation and confirmation of executions.