My Courtship and Its Consequences

Henry Wikoff, an American gentleman who may have the dubious honor of being the original inspiration for the phrase "confidence man" (later shortened in popular usage to "con man"), in 1852 endured a world-famous trial for abducting his own fiancée in Genoa, then part of the constitutional Kingdom of Sardinia. The charges were considered utterly spurious or at least excessive by many, justly warranted by others, but regardless of the merits of the charges the trial was a sensation, having e...