Booth's mistress, Ella Starr, and other "unknown" Booth ladies!

[Jenny]

Heads up that someone from the Wisconsin Historical Society managed to get a copy of the The Great Conspiracy: Founded on Fact, and Copiously Illustrated with Notes From Rare Pamphlets (1866) online - you can get it as an eBook or just read it by searching the title in Google Books. I know some folks have been trying to find a copy for a while so I had to let you guys know.

This is the "penny novel" that contains the "whether in time or eternity" message that was supposedly written to Ella Starr by John Wilkes Booth. Unsurprisingly it proves that said message wasn't legitimate.

The entire thing is a work of fiction despite the title (I got pretty bored with it myself), and it has some very, uh, interesting illustrations of the plot. Here are just a few - I can round up all of them and post if anyone is interested.