Ebook402 pages8 hours
Scotch Verdict: The Real-Life Story that Inspired "The Children's Hour"
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
In 1810, a Scottish student named Jane Cumming accused her school mistresses, Jane Pirie and Marianne Woods, of having an affair in the presence of their students. Dame Cumming Gordon, the wealthy and powerful grandmother of the accusing student, advises her friends to remove their daughters from the Drumsheugh boarding school. Within days, the institution is deserted and two women are deprived of their livelihoods.
Award-winning author Lillian Faderman recreates the events surrounding this notorious case, which became the basis for Lillian Hellman’s famous play, The Children’s Hour. Reconstructing the libel suit filed by Pirie and Woods, which resulted in a scotch verdict, or a verdict of inconclusive/not proven, Faderman builds a compelling narrative from court transcripts, judge’s notes, witnesses’ contradictory testimony, and the prejudices of the men presiding over the case. Her fascinating portrait documents the social, economic, and sexual pressures that shaped the lives of nineteenth-century women and the issues of class and gender that contributed to their marginalization.
Award-winning author Lillian Faderman recreates the events surrounding this notorious case, which became the basis for Lillian Hellman’s famous play, The Children’s Hour. Reconstructing the libel suit filed by Pirie and Woods, which resulted in a scotch verdict, or a verdict of inconclusive/not proven, Faderman builds a compelling narrative from court transcripts, judge’s notes, witnesses’ contradictory testimony, and the prejudices of the men presiding over the case. Her fascinating portrait documents the social, economic, and sexual pressures that shaped the lives of nineteenth-century women and the issues of class and gender that contributed to their marginalization.
Author
Lillian Faderman
Lillian Faderman is an internationally-known scholar of lesbian history and literature, as well as ethnic history and literature. Her many honours include six Lambda Literary Awards, two American Library Association Awards, and several lifetime achievement awards for scholarship. She is the author of Harvey Milk: His Lives and Death, The Gay Revolution, Surpassing the Love of Men, and Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers.
Read more from Lillian Faderman
To Believe in Women: What Lesbians Have Done For America - A History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Naked in the Promised Land: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Scotch Verdict
Related ebooks
The Sewing Circle: Hollywood's Greatest Secret—Female Stars Who Loved Other Women Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5U.S. History As Women's History: New Feminist Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Well of Loneliness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Jewish Women in Comics: Bodies and Borders Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Sexuality of History: Modernity and the Sapphic, 1565–1830 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPassions Between Women Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Trials of Radclyffe Hall Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsWe Walk Alone Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Sapphic Violets: Lesbian Classics Boxed Set: Sappho, Regiment of Women, Mrs. Dalloway & Carmilla Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Conduct Unbecoming: Gays & Lesbians in the U.S. Military Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5New Our Right to Love: A Lesbian Resource Book Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Her Neighbor's Wife: A History of Lesbian Desire Within Marriage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lesbianism Made Easy Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5A Fragile Union: New and Selected Writings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Queer Folks: Gender and Sexuality in Rural America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Precious and Adored: The Love Letters of Rose Cleveland and Evangeline Simpson Whipple, 1890–1918 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Most Beautiful Rot Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsINDOMITABLE: The Life of Barbara Grier Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAnother Kind Of Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Moby Dyke: An Obsessive Quest To Track Down The Last Remaining Lesbian Bars In America Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSinister Wisdom 106: The Lesbian Body Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTestimony Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Palmerino Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Out For Good: The Struggle to Build a Gay Rights Movement in Ame Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Female Fortune: The Anne Lister Diaries, 1833–36: Land, gender and authority: New Edition Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Queer Public History: Essays on Scholarly Activism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLesbian Images: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Am a Woman Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Century Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Literary Criticism For You
The Art of Seduction: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5One Hundred Years of Solitude: A Novel by Gabriel Garcia Márquez | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Power of Habit: by Charles Duhigg | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Speed Reading: How to Read a Book a Day - Simple Tricks to Explode Your Reading Speed and Comprehension Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/512 Rules For Life: by Jordan Peterson | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The 48 Laws of Power: by Robert Greene | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Man's Search for Meaning: by Viktor E. Frankl | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Verity: by Colleen Hoover | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts.by Brené Brown | Conversation Starters Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters to a Young Poet Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself by Michael A. Singer | Conversation Starters Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Bad Feminist: Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain | Conversation Starters Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Circe: by Madeline Miller | Conversation Starters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Kids: A National Book Award Winner Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5As I Lay Dying Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago [Volume 1]: An Experiment in Literary Investigation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5SUMMARY Of The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Virtues Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Gulag Archipelago: The Authorized Abridgement Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Reader’s Companion to J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Scotch Verdict
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Scotch Verdict - Lillian Faderman
u[Na book_preview_excerpt.html }I#ǕVb(!*D4Ғʘ>34tD8 !Q-&ENj%s{K&