Out of Print
Here within the covers of a single book are the highlights of the careers of four of the greatest lawyers who ever pleaded at the English bar : Marshall Hall, Edward Carson, Rufus Isaacs, and F. E. Smith; advocates of a character that has no counterpart today.
This study in the art of advocacy ranges over the celebrated trials of what the author terms the golden age of advocacy. Many of the leading cases in which these eminent lawyers were engaged are told from a new standpoint -as examples of the achievements of counsel pleading at the bar.
Marshall Hall was the great defender without whom no murder trial seemed complete. The dramatic interest of his life was comparable to that of his own cases.
Edward Carson Irishman and wit, accomplished the downfall of Oscar Wilde and was the champion in real life of the "Winslow Boy".
Rufus Isaacs starting life as a ship's boy, hammered on the Stock Exchange, rose to be Viceroy of India. It was he who exposed Seddon, the poisoner, and Whitaker Wright, the financier.
F. E. Smith youngest K.C. at the bar, rose to become, as Lord Birkenhead, the youngest Lord Chancellor to occupy the Woolsack.
Here then are conveyed the passionate zeal of Marshall Hall, carson's force in cross-examination, the rivalry between him and Isaacs, and the masterly judgements of Birkenhead (F.E.Smith), in a book that seeks to recapture for a new generation the spirit of the golden age of British advocacy.
