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Title details for Scotch Verdict by Lillian Faderman - Available

Scotch Verdict

The Real-Life Story That Inspired "The Children's Hour"

by Lillian Faderman
Judith Halberstam
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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 Helen Cumming Gordon, the wealthy and powerful grandmother of the accusing student, advised her friends to remove their daughters from the Drumsheugh boarding school. Within days, the institution was deserted and the two women were 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, judges' notes, witnesses' contradictory testimony, and the prejudices of the men presiding over the case. Her fascinating portrait documents the social, economic, and sexual pressures shaping the lives of nineteenth-century women and the issues of class and gender contributing to their marginalization.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 8, 2013

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Read

      • ISBN: 9780231533249

    • EPUB ebook

      • ISBN: 9780231533249
      • File size: 6441 KB

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • Library Journal

      October 15, 1993
      Scotch Verdict is the factual account of the story dramatized in Lillian Hellman's fine 1934 play, The Children's Hour . In actuality, the episode in which a student accused two schoolmistresses of participating in a lesbian relationship took place in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1811. After their reputations and careers were ruined, the two brought a libel suit against their accuser. According to LJ 's reviewer, Federman "abstracted, rearranged, and enriched the case transcript to create a book that reads like a novel yet breathtakingly demonstrates how preconceptions color interpretation and how impossible it is to find the truth' " ( LJ 6/15/83). A solid addition to any feminist/women's studies collection.

      Copyright 1993 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

    • Library Journal

      January 1, 1994
      Scotch Verdict is the factual account of the story dramatized in Lillian Hellman's fine 1934 play, The Children's Hour . In actuality, the episode in which a student accused two schoolmistresses of participating in a lesbian relationship took place in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1811. After their reputations and careers were ruined, the two brought a libel suit against their accuser. According to LJ 's reviewer, Federman "abstracted, rearranged, and enriched the case transcript to create a book that reads like a novel yet breathtakingly demonstrates how preconceptions color interpretation and how impossible it is to find the truth' " ( LJ 6/15/83). A solid addition to any feminist/women's studies collection.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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