The Great Monkey Trial

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The Great Monkey Trial is a 1968 book on the Scopes Trial by L. Sprague de Camp, first published in hardcover by Doubleday. This history of the trial was based on the memoirs of John T. Scopes, the archives of the A.C.L.U., assorted newspaper files, correspondence and interviews with dozens of those present at the trial, books and magazine articles written on trial (including the official record of the trial in the Rhea County Courthouse), and a couple of visits to Dayton.

De Camp breathed life into the trial transcript by adding vocal inflections, facial expressions, gestures and movement, as well as various crowd comments and reactions not found in the trial transcript. The chapter titles of de Camp's book provide a decidedly military flavor to the story (e.g., "The Challenge," "The Crusade," "The Champion Falls"). Literary quotations are provided at the start of each chapter and it is insightful that for "Single Combat," the chapter detailing the cross-examination of William Jennings Bryan by Clarence Darrow that he has a quotation from Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass where Alice and the Queen talk about believing impossible things. For de Camp the trial was a battle in "a conflict between two sets of ideas," the "theistic" and the "materialistic" or "mechanistic."

Reviewers praised de Camp's writing style while paying less attention to his argumentation. Some have held that what de Camp accomplished was to both replicate the ridicule associated with the trial by detailing the circus atmosphere and legitimate the legacy of ridicule. Though he avoided taking an extreme position, de Camp's subtle approach was as effective in its time and place as the barbs offered by Darrow and H. L. Mencken during the trial.