Scotch Verdict: Miss Pirie and Miss Woods v. Dame Cumming Gordon

by Lillian Faderman

The 1810. The Edinburgh, Scotland. A student, Jane Cumming, accuses 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 boarding school. Within days, the school is deserted and the two women deprived of their livelihood.
Lillian Faderman, award-winning author of Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers, gives an extraordinary rendering of the real-life story on which Lillian Hellman based her famous play, The Children's Hour. Faderman reconstructs the libel suit filed by Pirie and Woods that eventually resulted in a scotch verdict - a verdict of not proven or an inconclusive decision. Through court transcripts, judges' notes, and her personal reflections on the witnesses' contradictory testimony and the prejudices of the men presiding over the case, Faderman skillfully documents the social, economic, and sexual pressures that shaped the lives of nineteenth-century women.
Provocative and compelling, not only does Scotch Verdict point to the marginalization of women by raising issues of class, gender, and sexuality with respect to Pirie and Woods, but also of race in its depiction of Jane Cumming, the half-Indian child who was born in India and out of wedlock to Dame Cumming Gordon's eldest son.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Lesbian, LGBT, Scotland, Queer, Biography

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Lillian Faderman is an internationally known scholar of lesbian history and literature, as well as ethnic history and literature. Among her many honors are six Lambda Literary Awards, two American Library Association Awards, and several lifetime achievement awards for scholarship. She is the author of The Gay Revolution and the New York Times Notable Books, Surpassing the Love of Men and Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers. (photo by Donn R. Nottage)

Reviews

[Moira · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful and heartbreaking. This is almost like a lost fictional historical novel by Virginia Woolf -- yes, it really is that good, except even more empathic (Judith Halberstam's fairly useless introduction overemphasizes "Faderman's own commentary on Cumming," which seems to ignore the very heartfelt description of her fate at the end). I feared the framing device of the narrator-scholar and her lover Ollie commenting on the trial would be tiresome, but it is a wonderful addition to the story. I was practically in tears at the end, in several places. Highly recommended.

[Renee Morales · Rating 4 out of 5]

for class

never read anything like this but boy is this case crazy

[Sessily]

In a case that over one hundred years later inspired the 1934 play The Children's Hour (adapted into a movie in 1961), the reputation and livelihood of two Scottish schoolmistresses was ruined when a girl under their care accused them of engaging in a sexual relationship in the same room as their sleeping charges. After the girl's influential grandmother removed her from the school and recommended to the other families that their children be removed as well, the two women sued the grandmother, claiming that the girl's accusations were false. While the facts of the case are fascinating enough, Faderman goes one better by exploring head-on the unanswerable nature of the mystery at the center of the case (that is, did they or didn't they). She examines the judges' and lawyers' arguments, as well as the testimony of the girls', discussing the various biases and fears that formed their conclusions. Even better, peppered in between summaries of court documents and her own research on the schoolmistresses are Faderman's discussions of the case with her partner Ollie. It is in discussing their very different conclusions that Faderman reveals how our attempts to learn what happened between two other people, perhaps especially those of the past, is like an endless descent in which we get closer and closer to the ground but never quite land.

[fausto · Rating 4 out of 5]

El libro intercala los eventos históricos de la demanda entre Jane Pirie y Marianne Woods contra la Dama Helen Cumming Gordon, con la ficción que Faderman y su pareja (Ollie) trazan para darle una continuidad histórica a los enormes agujeros que hay respecto a los archivos judiciales del caso. En la vida real, Jane Cumming, nieta ilegítima de origen indio de la aristócrata, acusa ambiguamente a sus maestras del colegio de haber tenido sexo la una con la otra. Pronto la escuela de Pirie y Woods queda vacía, dejándolas en la quiebra total y con su reputación totalmente arruinada. Lo interesante del caso, es que una de las centralidades del juicio no fue tanto el si Pirie y Woods tuvieron contacto sexual, sino demostrar que tal cosa como el lesbianismo existe en absoluto.

Es un buen libro, sin embargo, en muchos momentos me pareció un poco monótono; es interesante observar cómo Faderman va a trazar una hipótesis sobre los hechos ocurridos basándose en su fenomenal libro Surpassing the Love of Men. Es un libro trágico en muchos sentidos, tanto para Pirie como para Woods así como para Jane Cumming. No existe mayor registro histórico sobre la suerte final de ninguna de ellas, pero basándose en la escasa documentación existente, resulta claro para Faderman que todas ellas terminaron con una vida solitaria y económicamente estrecha.

Es un libro indispensable sobre historia lesbiana, aunque personalmente prefiero a su icónico predecesor.

[Sheila Confer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating read, especially for anyone in the theater who loves or has production experience with The Children's Hour. I enjoyed how the author and her partner engaged with the material and mused over the unknown bits. I very much appreciated their open and critical approach to the evidence. I used this book as supplemental material for a theater class where I use The Children's Hour. Having this well curated historical record of the case that inspired the play makes studying it much more meaningful for me and my students.

[halanmoozle (Lilienne!)]

this book is rife with contradiction, so much so that I can’t rate it—because if it goes one way, I disliked this book immensely, but if it goes another, it’s completely brilliant.

I guess that is what makes it so brilliant, placing the trial of these women—two in 1811, two in 1982–in the hands of the reader. There are things I didn’t appreciate and postulations that I believed were missing, while the conjecture and speculation was crowding—but it all depends on how much of Faderman you see in the narrator, you see in Ollie.

So I don’t know how I feel. But I keep thinking about it.

[Jenny Fan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The idea of a bunch of men (probably drunk) sitting around and wondering how lesbian sex works is hysterical. The actual outcome of the case is much more sobering, but the transcripts were entertaining, to say the least.

[Macinly Fram · Rating 4 out of 5]

these trial transcripts are absolutely WILD

[Alyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this interesting. Some of the court stuff was a little dry, but all in all it held my attention. Living in the US, I was looking at it through that lens and honestly was thinking this could happen today, especially in this climate. Definitely going to check out more of Faderman’s more recent work.

[Katherine R · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engrossing tale of injustice for all parties involved