Criminal Conversations: Sentimentality and Nineteenth-Century Legal Stories of Adultery

Storytelling is an essential aspect of any legal case. But what kinds of stories win cases, and why? Criminal Conversations explores sentimentality as both a literary genre and a rhetorical strategy in the novels and courtrooms of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century America. By focusing on "criminal conversation"—the civil tort whereby a cuckold sues his wife's lover to for damages to his property rights from the adultery—Korobkin argues that literary discourse, used in the courtro...