In 1733, struggling printer John Peter Zenger scandalized colonial New York by launching a small newspaper, the New York Weekly Journal, which assailed the new British governor as corrupt and arrogant―a direct challenge to the prevailing law against "seditious libel" that criminalized any criticism of the royal government. Fronting for a group of powerful antiroyalist politicians, Zenger was thrown in jail for nine months before his landmark one day trial on August 4, 1735, in a packed courtroom, where he was brilliantly defended by Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton. In Indelible Ink, Richard Kluger recreates in rich detail this dramatic clash of powerful antagonists that marked the beginning of press freedom in America and its role in vanquishing colonial tyranny. Here is an enduring lesson that redounds to this day on the vital importance of free public expression as the underpinning of democracy.