The Prison Diary and Letters of Chester Gillette: September 18, 1907 through March 30, 1908

Chester Gillette was executed on March 30, 1908, for the murder of Grace Brown, who was pregnant with his child. The trial was a sensation at the time and the case became the basis for Theodore Dreiser's classic novel An American Tragedy, the 1951 Academy award-winning movie A Place in the Sun, and a 2006 opera. Revealed here, for the first time in nearly a century, are Chester's private thoughts in his final months. The diary was kept private by the Gillette family for ninety-nine years and only came to light in 2007 when Marlynn McWade-Murray, the grandniece of Chester Gillette, donated it to the Hamilton College Library. Along with the diary, this volume contains twelve letters Chester wrote from prison while awaiting his execution. Eleven of the letters are to Bernice Ferrin, a young friend of the Gillette family for whom Chester seemed to have romantic feelings. The twelfth letter was written to his sister Hazel the day before his execution. This work includes a synopsis of the events surrounding the murder and trial by Craig Brandon, the leading scholar on the Gillette case. Jack Sherman provides an introduction to the diary along with headnotes to each entry and explanations of Chester's many obscure references.