Sensation and the Fourth Estate: The Times and the Yelverton Bigamy Trials

This article examines how the Times covered one of the most sensational stories of the 1860s, the Yelverton bigamy trials, while maintaining its reputation as a serious, respectable publication. The reportage was carefully framed using three distinct strategies: an emphasis on strong foreign reporting, the use of excerpts from official trial transcripts, and the reprinting of material from other newspapers. All of these tactics allowed the paper to focus on the legal and institutional implications of the case and to cover the story while still maintaining a calculated distance from sensational material.