The Great Monkey Trial

From dust jacket notes: "...L. Sprague de Camp's definitive account of the court battle that began on that blistering July day in 1925 is the most comprehensive book on the Scopes trial to date. In vivid detail he has described the circus atmosphere that surrounded the town of Dayton, Tennessee (pop. 1,800) for a few summer weeks that year. Everyone from crackpots and faith healers to the just plain curious descended on that quiet Southern town to watch the spectacle of John Scopes being tried for the offense of teaching evolution to his high school biology class. During the eight dramatic days of the trial, Dayton was the center of national attention. But while famed attorney Clarence Darrow and the silver-tongued William Jennings Bryan were locked in verbal combat inside the courthouse, the town of Dayton was treated to an equally exciting show outside. Wild-eyed revivalist preachers exhorted crowds; fly-by-nighters of every description peddled souvenir monkey trinkets and religious pamphlets; a merchant named Darwin, claiming kinship to the famous evolutionist, put a large sign over his shop door reading, 'DARWIN IS RIGHT INSIDE.' By capturing the full flavor of the now-historic trial, the author has given us not only an excellent description of the battle and its combatants, but he has managed to place the trial in its true historical context, in an age when American life mixed innocence with flamboyance, cynicism with idealism."