The Life of Sir Edward Marshall Hall

by Edward Marjoribanks

2019 · Muriwai Books

Time and again the crowd roared its vehement applause when the magnificent figure of Edward Marshall Hall was seen leaving the Old Bailey after one of his great triumphs as "counsel for the defence." This lawyer, who appeared in almost every famous murder trial in England during the last forty years, was the very man to catch the public eye. Six feet three inches in height, "the Apollo of the Bar," passionately eloquent, alert and daring, he was one of the most dynamic and irresistible of advocates who ever pleaded before a jury. This "Memoir" is not only an unusually full picture of the life of a great lawyer; it is also a record of many famous criminal cases. Marshall Hall's genius for cross examination, his quickness in seizing on a flaw in the prosecutor's case, his histrionic power, his compassion, and the talent he had for suddenly producing, as if by a conjuror's trick, a new bit of evidence for which his opponents were totally unprepared—all these qualities come out in clear relief in the sensational trial scenes reproduced here. There is a place for this book in law literature and as the biography of an intensely vivid personality. Moreover, it contains a collection of true stories of crime which would be difficult to match in fiction.