Subseries 14 - Old Man Rice

0.8 m of textual records

My book, The Case of Valentine Shortis, was to be published in the spring of 1986. That summer, I explored the possibility of doing an American true-crime case to form a trilogy with my Lipski and Shortis books. With the help of my summer research assistant, Tim Endicott, I looked at murder cases in New York City from about 1890 to the First World War, which had numerous entries in the index to the New York Times. Many of these cases already had books written about them. The 1902 trial in Manhattan of Albert Patrick for the alleged murder of William Marsh Rice, the founder of Rice University, had, it appeared, not been the subject of a book and seemed like a particularly interesting case. No American city was then as dynamic as New York City, and I was particularly interested in it because my father had grown up there. Indeed, his family arrived in New York shortly before the time that the trial was taking place.

I called Rice University to determine whether there were any records there dealing with the case. The university archivist assured me that there was a great amount of material (file 3) and that, indeed, nobody had written a book about the case (file 2). This book was far more difficult to research than Lipski or even Shortis. The records were scattered across the continent and the time period covered extended over about 150 years--from the time that Rice came to Texas in about 1838 to fairly recent years. The book, The Death of Old Man Rice: A True Story of Criminal Justice in America, was eventually published by the University of Toronto Press and New York University Press eight years later, in 1994.

In 1996, I donated most of my research documents on the case to Rice University (file 52). They had of course, a strong interest in the records of my research and the development of the manuscript. Most of my research notes and files were sent there, as well as various chronologies and biographical sketches, the hand-written draft of the manuscript, and subsequent drafts.

I kept back, however, most of the correspondence relating to the case, all the documents relating to publication, and all the photographs. I also kept back the original drafts of the preface, and the opening and closing sections of the book (files 12 and 13). In addition, I kept back the various comments on the draft manuscript (file 14) and the page proofs (files 31-32).

The correspondence includes letters to and from handwriting experts, medical experts, embalming experts, and others. There is also correspondence relating to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who had been peripherally involved in the case. (See files 6 to 11).

Documents in Box 2 relating to publication include correspondence with those who provided endorsements--James A. Baker III, Eddie Greenspan, Federal Judge John Noonan, and Professor Richard Uviller (file 23). The box also contains the usual correspondence relating to the contract, the copy for catalogues and jackets, etc., and promotion (files 19 to 32). Because I was dealing with both the U of T Press and NYU Press, there are in some cases separate files for each press.

Pictures were used extensively throughout the book. About 50 pictures were used (file 35). I had hoped that a photograph could be used before each of the one hundred sections in the book, but the U of T Press preferred to have four pages of pictures at the start of each of the seven parts to the book. A great amount of effort
was required to obtain sufficient photographs to enable a good selection to be made. All these pictures, those used and those not used, are contained in Box 73.

Box 74 contains the many reviews of the book in US, Canadian, and English journals and papers (files 47 and 48). It also contains the nibbles that I received in relation to the possibility of a film or TV documentary (file 51). Again, as with the Lipski and Shortis books, I’m still hoping.

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